Aston Villa v Chelsea: Tactical Analysis

Chelsea's best performance of the season? Certainly one of them

Chelsea lined up in the usual 4-2-3-1 with an interesting change in attack. Jackson started on the left, with Palmer as the false 9 and Noni on the right. There was no Silva at the back after multiple back-to-back games at 39 showed he needed some rest (amid speculation on his wife’s comments). Aston Villa lined up in their usual 4231 that most resembles a 442 as well.

Chelsea in possession are usually very flexible changing shapes between 4-1, 3-1, and 3-2, but today it was still flexible as it was still a 3-2 shape with Gusto staying deeper in the build-up. But it also included Caicedo playing as a half-back too. When that happened, Chilly went forward and Enzo dropped deep.

With Enzo and Caicedo playing closer together than I’ve seen in a while, we were able to build out effectively from the back. Especially as Enzo filled in for Chilwell as a make-shift left back while on the ball, which allowed Chilly to stick to his strength of making runs, and Enzo dictating play. I’ve been calling for it since the City game.

These are some of the build-up situations we had in the game because of that. We constantly played out of pressure well.

Another thing we saw more of was Caicedo dropping in between the 2 CBs as the half-back, which we also hardly saw from him frankly as much as it should. When that happened, Gallagher dropped beside Enzo, and Palmer chose his moments to drop too.

Chelsea pressed well and situationally in a 4-4-2 as Villa's strength is playing through the centre with McGinn and today, Tielemans, in the half-spaces. The situation that was different was at times Chelsea allowed them to come up the pitch, forming a midblock but set pressing traps for them in the middle of the pitch. It’s not so different for Chelsea as we defend narrow normally, but it paid off in this game. Noni and Jackson were positioned in those half spaces to stop Tielemans and McGinn from getting those balls and causing havoc.

Villa kept running into a 4 to 6-man midfield with Gallagher and Palmer also pitching in, which made them lose the ball a lot. What was a massive help was how high Chelsea’s defence line was.

The issues the team have been suffering in recent games are the gap between the midfield and defence and when the team presses, the backline could leave gaping holes in the middle of the pitch. It was far from the case and was much more compact.

The wingers Jackson and Noni did so much work covering their respective fullbacks and that’s what this Poch system needs and why we suffer more with Sterling on the wings, as he doesn’t track back.

When Chelsea lost the ball, our counter-press was really important as it created the first goal. impressive there from Chelsea. We tried to limit Villa’s counterattacks well.

What was key was that Chilwell and Gusto didn’t attack together much and left the rest of the defence lacking like against the Wolves. But when they did, Gallagher stayed back to help the rest-defence. Enzo was far deeper than he normally was, and it was a big reason why the build-up was so much better.

Villa initially took advantage of the not-so-compact press early on (understandable lack of confidence coming into the game) and to try to put Chelsea under pressure early by playing through the press as it wasn’t tight enough and that way they could find the wings early. But when the press got better they could hardly shift the ball to the wings. Even though they did, Chelsea slowed them down enough to be ready when it got there.

It further proves my point that for Poch's system to work the wingers have to defend as well to help the FBs against potential 2v1s.

When Villa still managed to find the wings, Gusto and Chilly did well in managing the threats. Villa couldn’t take advantage of the space with accurate switches.

Chelsea's plan to attack Villa wasn’t different from the previous times we faced them, trying to attack their highline, through different methods, we made use of switches of plays to take advantage of 2v1 against Villa's highline through overlapping and underlapping runs. Let’s see how that happened.

Chelsea continued the tactic of the last game to constantly make in-seam runs whenever our wide men had the ball, the encouraging thing is that the wide men weren’t isolated.

If it wasn’t in-seam runs, it was overlapping runs. There was always support for the wide players. It seemed well-timed each time Noni dropped into the pockets, Gusto overlapped, and when Jackson came and did the same in the left half-space, Chilwell was ready to receive on the overlap.

Villa tried to exploit our highline at times using Watkins, but Disasi and Badiashille were comfortable dealing with them. Petrovic too started sweeping high as well to prevent those balls in behind from causing problems.

Chelsea was also dangerous on the counter, pouring men forward on the break and making really good movements into space. Villa’s highline and non-existent rest defence encouraged this.

From the 70th minute as our press dropped and we began to tire, Villa then started to take advantage of our wingers tiring and threatening outside much more.

Poch responded well to it and changed the formation to a 541 adding Silva to the backline, and Villa couldn’t take advantage of those wide areas again. This is something Poch should try more often to close out games, especially when we know our wide areas can be exploited because of how narrow we defend.

Lastly, we need to learn how to deal with short corners much better, it’s just what put the little blemish on an excellent performance. Follow the men stationed for short passes. It caused the goal but was inconsequential as the damage was done.

When the team was back against the walls after two terrible back-to-back performances in our last games, this was a timely reminder of the quality of this team when it’s working well and also when we are clinical in both boxes. Let’s hope for some semblance of consistency now.

Seun