Chelsea vs Tottenham, a brief thread

Chelsea continued with the 3-4-3. Reece James and Alonso pushed high, pinning back Aurier and Davies. Mount mostly operated as a false 9 but the front 3 would often interchange positions

Tuchel continued to get Chelsea to build from the back with Jovacic playing in front of the 3 CBs

In the first half Spurs largely kept a 4-2-3-1 shape off the ball with Ndombele on Jorginho and Bergwijn on Kovacic. This at times however become more of a 4-2-2-2 with Son joining Vinicius.

They mostly allowed to Chelsea’s back three to circulate the ball without pressure, though Son would sometimes try cut out the passing lane to Azpilicueta

Since Kovacic was playing so narrow it forced Bergwijn infield and this left a lot of space open on the left since Alonso was forcing Aurier back. This space was then used by Werner or Mount who would drop bac to progress the ball

Due to Tottenham’s passive approach and how narrow Son was, Apzilicueta had a lot of space to dribble into and at times he played as more of a typical RB, pushing up to to form overloads on the right with Reece and CHO

Tottenham’s double pivot of Hojbjerg and Sissoko looked to get tight on the two inside forwards. Since CHO and Werner often played very high, making runs into depth they could be forced very deep. This left a lot space in between the lines which could be exploited by Mount.

To help deal with Chelsea’s overloads on the right, Hojbjerg moved over to that side, but with Sissoko still staying tight on Werner, this allowed Mount even more space

Occasionally both Mount and CHO would come deeper with Werner staying higher, consequently forming a 2v1 vs Hjobjerg

Though Chelsea mainly looked to advance via the right with Azpi carrying the ball into midfielf, they would also look to move the ball vertically through the centre and create chances through 3rd man runners

Spurs looked lost whenever they had the ball. They struggled to build at the back whenever they tried to and although they looked to get long balls into Vinicius they failed to provide him with support whenever he won the ball.

Their lack of compactness was also a problem on the rare occasions they did press high. Here Kovacic is able to receive the ball, with space to turn

After the second half, the home side came out with more intensity, and looked to press higher. Vinicius on Christensen, Bergwijn and Son to put more pressure on Chelsea’s CBs

However this left Ndombele in a 2v1 against Chelsea’s pivot and since Tottenham’s pivot didn’t move up it was still pretty easy for Chelsea to progress the ball.

There were some occasions where Hjobjerg or Sissoko moved up to support the press, though Chelsea were still able to advance through Kovacic’s ball carrying

Chelsea still had several good chances in the second half (Mount, Werner, Kovacic all could’ve scored) and really should’ve killed the game off. They started to put their foot off the gas and lost control in the final 15 minutes, but luckily managed to come out unscathed