Chelsea's counter press success under Tuchel

A deeper look into the efficient counter-pressing system deployed by Thomas Tuchel

I sit here writing this article shortly after witnessing another comfortable win in the Tuchel era for Chelsea Football Club, this time a 2-0 win over a capitulated Newcastle United.

A few talking points arose from this fixture; Kepa Arrizabalaga starting, Timo Werner’s first Premier League goal in an age and more.

Nevertheless, for all the possession Chelsea now keep and the ease of watching the team on the ball more when watching a game on TV, it was Chelsea’s off the ball endeavours that caught my eye this game.

When Thomas Tuchel took over at Chelsea, we saw many accounts share their extensive reviews on Tuchel’s tactical repertoire and what style of play we would now see in SW6.

A common component found repeatedly in each of these reviews was the art of counter pressing.

Counter pressing is the art of pressing immediately after losing possession as an organised unit in pursuit of winning the ball back, before transitioning into a defensive shape.

A thoroughly discussed example of this in past years within the game is FC Barcelona’s “6 second rule” deployed to win possession back within six seconds of high intensity pressing.

We have seen evidence of the Tuchel pressing machine in each game since he took over at Chelsea, with increased effectiveness in each game.

Whilst Newcastle United aren’t exactly passing connoisseurs, the evidence of this machine in action was prevalent throughout the affair.

Below is a still example of how the “front six” of Chelsea’s team today immediately engaged the ball as a collective unit once possession was sacrificed.

The above image shows the front three aligned all shifting across the field towards the ball, whilst the midfield pivot and RWB (Hudson Odoi) all engage the ball in a collective press in order to suffocate the space, evidently winning the ball back.

If you were to watch one of those Tuchel tactical review videos I mentioned earlier, you would know that often once possession is won in this fashion in a Tuchel side, the ball is often switched across to the “weak side” to attack the open space there often with the goal of creating an overload there.

Below is another example of the counter press in action. Now you may be wondering what tangible element can tell us whether a counter press is effective or not? Time.

When I watched the first half back in full, besides the abundance of times we won the ball back, we also won it back in an incredibly efficient fashion.

For example, the above example reflects Newcastle having the ball for four seconds, before we won the ball back and switched play. This certainly wasn’t an isolated example neither.

You may be thinking, well that’s easy, the ball is on the wing and space is already limited. Whilst you’re correct, if you went back and watched Chelsea in tight spaces yesterday, particularly playing out the back, they did it amicably, whilst being pressed.

Yes the players are better, however, Newcastle’s pressing game simply isn’t as tailored as Chelsea’s. You can also notice both examples feature six players or more, showing how collective the effort is when counter pressing, which is fundamental in its success.

Another thought that may arise is, when we possess the ball so much for most of the game, why do we need to win it back so quickly? Perhaps we can use this time to regroup, regenerate and then counter attack.

A simple answer to that would be, well the higher up the field you win the ball, the more likely you are to score no? For example, if you watch Leeds United this season when they play out the back, they are often giving up “cheap” goals due to being pressed and giving up the ball right outside their own box.

If you look deeper, or listen to Thomas Tuchel’s press conferences extensively, you would have heard his desire to be “precise” and “effective” in the final third once possession is won. Take yesterday’s game, as you will see below, we had 71% of the ball, plus double the touches and nearly three times the passes.

You can look at this one of two ways, “Chelsea dominated the game” or “Chelsea need to be more clinical with all their passes/possession,” of which both are true.

Nevertheless, let’s focus on the latter, as you can be sure Tuchel is also. As we speak, Chelsea are in the ‘learning’ process of Tuchel’s pressing machine, a station or two away from being a finely tuned machine. The need to win the ball back as efficiently as possible for Tuchel can allude to the following reasons:

• The more possession we have, the more we “suffocate” the opposition and drain their concentration levels

• The quicker we can implement Tuchel’s “quick transitional attacking game,” only strengthened by having the lion’s share of the ball

• Perhaps most intriguingly, yet simply; the more we have the ball, the more chances we will create, evidently leading to a higher chance we will score

The last point may seem obvious. However, as of now, Tuchel simply hasn’t had enough time to implement his tactics fully to the point that Chelsea will score the predominant of their chances.

However, the signs are certainly there, and with time you’d imagine we will only become more efficient with this. Tuchel craves this, as highlighted by his touchline antics (or frustrations if you prefer) and his consistent raising of the topic in his press conferences.

Like this article, Thomas Tuchel’s current Chelsea side are only scratching the surface of a plethora of tactical sagacity with the German. If current evidence is anything to go by, we can expect the “implementation” and “maintenance” stages of the Tuchel pressing machine to be prevalent in Chelsea’s future sooner rather than later.

Written by Dan McCarthy - @MaccaSport