The Blues have slipped to six points off Premier League leaders Man City in recent weeks, so should their manager show some tactical flexibility?
Chelsea’s record of two wins in their last six Premier League games has been widely blamed on a growing injury list and the impact of Covid-19 on the club.
And while there is a lot of truth to that, it is interesting to note that few have suggested Thomas Tuchel ought to be able to adapt to the situation.
The German coach is no doubt partly to blame for the Blues’ drop in form, and it is with some irony that the problem lies in changing his starting XI too much, but not changing the overall strategy at all.
When Tuchel arrived at Stamford Bridge, he was renowned for being an anxious, even twitchy manager who constantly tinkered with his formation.
He would create complex plans to negate opposition threats and strike at the chink in their armour, sometimes to the detriment of his own team. He was not one to sit still, not one to shirk on a bold formation choice in the search for a solution.
How strange, then, that in his first 11 months as Chelsea manager, he has not once moved away from deploying a back three. To date, the 0-0 draw with Wolves that came 24 hours after his initial appointment is the only competitive match in which he has started with a back four.
Tuchel hasn’t adapted to power imbalance
On a basic level, a 3-4-2-1 has more defenders on the pitch than a 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1, and though Antonio Rudiger’s charging runs and Chelsea’s wing-backs’ commitment to attack go some way to tipping the balance, it is a simple fact that the European champions generally have fewer creative players on the pitch than their title rivals.
Among the central issues here is too much organisation. Chelsea are rigid in their movements, sitting in a tight structure that offers little wiggle room for creative expression, a problem exacerbated by the lack of numbers found in the final third.
It is telling that their season’s expected goals (xG) tally of 33.8 is significantly lower than that of their title rivals – and even below fourth-placed Arsenal.
Too often, Chelsea find themselves camped in the opposition half, but passing without penetration across the width of the pitch, struggling because, with just two central midfielders, there is little room for verticality into the forwards.
Perhaps Tuchel has not yet worked out how to adapt to the Premier League, which forces clubs of Chelsea’s size to dominate possession and territory. This was a problem, at times, when he was at Paris Saint-Germain, though their technical superiority made it largely irrelevant.
Before his move to France, Tuchel’s coaching career was spent in Germany, where it is far easier to play on the counterattack; to break beyond a defensive line with piercing vertical football.
There simply is not the space as Chelsea manager to send players like Timo Werner and Kai Havertz in behind, and following Wolves’ and Everton’s draws against the Blues in recent days while playing ultra-defensive football, this is only going to become a bigger concern with time.