Blue Beats Blue - The Cashico Review

Blogger #18

Football is a funny game. The responsibility and the media attention that the managers receive is unreal. More often than not, they are painted as the sole reason for a team winning or losing. Great footballing teams are often referred to by the manager who was at the helm through that period (Arrigo Sacchi’s Milan, Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona, Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea, etc.) and deservedly so. But for a majority of individual games, holding the manager responsible for ‘tactical malfunctions’ is quite absurd because tactics and formations don’t always win games. There’s only so much a manager can do with tactics and beyond that, it’s up to the players.  

Much of the post-match reaction to this match was centred on Mourinho ‘outwitting’ Pellegrini. While Pellegrini didn’t make it any easier for himself by refusing to shake Mourinho’s hand at the final whistle, raising questions on Pellegrini’s tactical nous based on the result of this match defeats the point because tactically, Manchester City were fine.

Line Ups, Shape and Intent:

Line-Ups

Mata was once again benched as Mourinho started with Hazard and Schurrle on the wings. Torres was preferred over Eto’o to lead the attack.

The City line-up showed some interesting decisions. With captain Kompany injured, Demichelis was drafted in for his first start of the season. Further up, Negredo was sacrificed for an extra midfielder as Javi Garcia was brought in. Yaya Toure was pushed higher up, behind Aguero.

Although both teams retained a formation that roughly resembled the popular 4-2-3-1, their intentions were nothing similar. Mourinho has often conceded the possession in big games, content to play on the counter, and this game was no different. City largely dominated possession (54.5%) while Chelsea were content defending deep, drawing their opponents in before hitting them on the counter. (A strategy that was highly effective in Chelsea’s midweek CL win at Schalke. They won 0-3 with just 40% of possession).

Differing Strategies:

A lot of questions have been asked post-match regarding Pellegrini’s decision to leave out Negredo out of the starting line-up. Pellegrini revealed in his pre-match interview that he was aware of Chelsea’s counter-attacking threat, and he set about neutralising it. As I pointed out in my review of the Manchester Derby (read it here if you haven’t), City are prone to leaving gaps between defence and midfield with Toure and Fernandinho in the side (neither a proper defensive midfielder) and in the absence of Garcia, Oscar might have had a field day. While the argument can be made that City missed Negredo and his hold-up ability, Garcia had a solid game and kept the ball moving, completing 48 passes in his time on the field with an accuracy of 98%. If Pellegrini’s logic behind including Garcia was to help ball retention and close the gaps in midfield, it worked out alright.

Silva reprised Nasri’s role from the game against United. Roaming all over the pitch, he was crucial to City dominating possession completing the highest number of passes compared to any other player on the pitch. Nasri played a similar role on the right wing, although to a lesser extent, his ability to cut inside onto his right foot restricted due to his position on the right wing rather than the left.  But it looked like sterile domination for much of the match and Chelsea were content to sit deep and let their opponents have the ball.

Silva making his presence felt all over the pitch

If and when City got into Chelsea’s penalty box, Chelsea had the numbers on their side and City were restricted to shots from narrow angles. But City had some brilliant phases of intricate passing, and scored their goal from one such phase. Some quick passing found Terry and Cahill much higher than the centerbacks would have wanted, and Aguero had more time and space to rifle a brilliant shot past Cech, albeit from a similar narrow angle.

City’s packed midfield, their high line and possession based play meant that Chelsea had to hit them with high paced counter-attacks that could exploit City’s high line. Chelsea found two ways to do this, either with simple balls over City’s defence, or by shifting the ball quickly to their forwards and asking them to beat their opposing man in 1v1 situations.  

In the absence of Kompany, City lacked a commanding presence in their defence, and their offside trap was sometimes found lacking (why a team which has spent almost 600m on transfers in recent times should rely so much on a single defender is beyond me). First Cahill blasted over, and soon after Torres missed his customary sitter from another lofted ball.

None of the designated ‘wingers’ or wide players that started the match were wingers in the classical sense. None of them hugged the touchline, aiming to beat the opposing wingbacks on the outside, as a Valencia or Navas would have. While the wingers involved in this match primarily played their game in the centre of the pitch, their approach to it was quite different. Both Silva and Nasri drifted all over the pitch, getting involved in the build-up play, making short passes and constantly recycling possession. On the other hand, the Chelsea wide-men looked to receive the ball in wide areas and dribble inside, looking to beat City defenders (Hazard leaving behind Zabaleta flat on his ass comes to mind) before going for the killer pass. Generally, City looked happy to deal with this, the extra man in midfield helping, but a moment’s lapse from Clichy led to Chelsea’s first goal, Torres steaming past him before crossing for Schurrle to tap in.

Chelsea attempting numerous dribbles

While we’re at it, Torres deserves a mention. He had a great game, more than making up for his earlier miss with some fine bits of individual play and dribbling. City found him difficult to deal with, and Torres ended up being the player who suffered the most fouls (He also attempted the highest no. of take-ons).

Much of Chelsea’s one touch passing was done in deeper areas by the likes of Terry, Cahill, Lampard and Ramires. The fact that Terry completed the highest number of passes for Chelsea is testament to this. The presence of David Luiz might have helped here. He possesses a far better range of passing compared to Terry and Cahill and could have helped in faster transitions from defence to attack.

Final Thoughts:

It was left to Hart and his antics to gift Chelsea the winner. While Hart will have to take most of the blame for the goal, it was another long ball over City’s high line causing them problems.

Ultimately, it was three individual errors (Clichy, Cech, Hart) that led to the goals. But Cech will feel hard done by. He acted instinctively. All Cech's training would have made him set up for a shot back across the goal but he was undone by a moment of brilliance and laser-like accuracy from the Argentinian, one of the moments of the match. That and Torres’ dribble into the box and hitting the bar. ‘El Cashico’ cannot match the El Clasico for technical quality, but these were two moments of genuine class.

Of course, next time, Cech will be more cautious but, next time, Aguero will probably lob it in the far corner, back-heel it between the keeper's legs or get down on his knees and head it in. Who knows what the cheeky bastard will do next?

Pellegrini will have to rethink his plans for Hart who has made 7 errors leading directly to a goal since the start of last season. No other EPL keeper has made more during the same period. For a title challenging team, that is quite a blatant weakness.

City played well for much of the game, and were undone by woeful individual errors. Mourinho got the three points, and most of the times that is all that matters, but Pellegrini can take heart from this performance. There was much to be positive about.