Chelsea v Everton: Tactical Analysis

Palmer and Midfield ball winning Masterclass

Chelsea lined up in a 4-2-3-1 as usual with a more attacking front 4 and for the first time playing with Noni and Mudryk at the same time in the Premier League this season. Everton started with a 4-5-1 formation and Beto starting for an injured Calvert-Lewin.

Chelsea not long after settled in their 3-2-5 shape in settled possession, with Silva central, Chalobah and Cucurella on either side of him, Conor and Caicedo in front of them, and Gusto joining the front line to make it a front line of 5 players.

Everton tried to press Chelsea at every opportunity throughout the game, so Chelsea had to play through them or over them. Normally our distances are too much between the players. They weren’t big but I noticed the options were there to play out of the press but players didn’t make easy passes out of pressure, especially in the first half. But most times it looked like Chelsea preferred to play long and win the 2nd balls to transition and it worked as well.

We are much better building up after we recycle the ball back to the GK in play than starting from the GK directly. It would take the opposition team much more time to press than a settled press from a goal kick.

Although Chelsea's build-up wasn’t consistently good, it had success (1st Goal).

Another way we consistently carved Everton open was through winning the ball in midfield. Gallagher and Caicedo and the shape we had was important to this. In the last few games where we consistently conceded 2 goals in 7 consecutive games, we have been more open, while yesterday we were more compact. Then again Everton didn't really test the press trying to play out, but it was much better than our press against Burnley for example. Everton also played a fairly high line as well as leaving too much space for Palmer and Jackson between the lines to cause havoc (which we exploited more of).

As a result, our press and counter press were much better yesterday than in previous games. So when we got the ball we quickly transitioned against an unsettled Everton defence. We got loads of joy from it, especially in the first half.

Chelsea pressed in their usual 4-4-2 shape to a better degree of success in this game, as Everton also built up in a 4-2-4 shape too. Jackson and Palmer pressed the CBs (Palmer started by marking Onana), then when they went to the CBs, Gallagher and Caicedo marked Onana.

Apart from the press. we did something we haven’t done in a long long time, concede a counterattack. I mentioned the distance between the lines being closer and the overall shape of the team being better. It included the rest defence of the team.

Rest defence is the shape of the team when that team is on the ball to stop counters, so the distances between the team are shorter and allows the team to be compact.

Our counter-press was very good yesterday, we won the ball a lot of the time, and the positioning of Caicedo and Gallagher was key to this.

To show how well Caicedo and Gallagher's impact was important to how well we played and the press, we dive into their stats.

Gallagher had 100 touches, won a staggering 13/16 duels, 3/4 aerial duels against a duel-dominant side in Everton, won 4 dribbles, won a tackle and 2 interceptions.

While Caicedo won 11/17 of his duels, won 6 tackles, 4 interceptions, and winning 2/3 of his dribbles. They were the platform for how well we played.

It was that pressing situation that led to Palmer's hattrick, even though it was extremely poor decision-making from Pickford.

When I spoke about how better compact the team was, I spoke about the impact of our midfield. But I also noticed our defenders were front-footed when defending. We are so used to dropping back at the first sight of trouble, but yesterday Silva and Chalobah seemed to prefer stepping out to defend rather than just running back and made more use of the offside traps. Everton had 4 offsides. No team has had that number of offsides against Chelsea since Luton Town in December 2023.

Everton made use of our wings to create their own chances and the failure of our wide players and FBs tracking some dangerous crosses put into our box from set pieces and in play. It was their most potent threat as they have players good in the air. Mostly in the 1st half.

Everton were a threat from set pieces too. A side where half of their goals this season have been from set pieces, they were always going to cause trouble from them but we held strong.

In the 2nd half, it was more of the same thing.

When Chelsea won the ball, the directness of our players from there and decision-making was very good as we created chances most times. Our wingers/attackers were directly driving at Everton's defence and creating chances.

The game was finished in the first half, but what I loved about the 2nd half was we dominated the game even more and controlled it. Everton had 0.26xG in the 2nd half and only 1 on target. We had long spells with possession, something we don’t have in our games we lead. We usually manage to make every game a heart in mouth for our fans, so it was good to see us step up the tempo of the game, move the ball well, recycle it and keep possession (defend with the ball).

I also loved the fact we pressed throughout the game even though our subs came on. We’ve tended to drop pour pressing line too easily when we lead and it makes teams bypass us too easily and create chances.

This was surely our best performance of the season? You could say it’s a poor Everton side, but we’ve also been poor against the 2 worst teams in the League based on the league table (with respect to both teams). So I’ll call it what it was - a very impressive, dominant win. If we keep some principles we saw today, we will win more than we lose points in the final run-in.

Seun