Travelling away to Manchester City has to be one of the toughest fixtures on the Premier League schedule and it was no different for Chelsea. Coming out of Etihad Stadium with a draw has to be a massive result on paper for Mauricio Pochettino and Chelsea, thanks to that colossal finish by Raheem Sterling.
It was a performance that tested the belief, grit, tactics, and determination jointly and severally of everyone involved for the Blues from the Bridge.
If you compare Chelsea with other big six teams in the Premier League, they are the most “vertical” team in possession after their buildup phase. This was quite at show yesterday with the passes between the lines in the middle phase of the build-up by Chelsea which was complemented by runners bisecting City’s defensive line which complemented the visitors in abundance as they created at least three 1v1 opportunities against Ederson Moraes.
Chelsea did keep City quite at bay, not letting them settle into any sequence of possession thanks to a contained press on their initial build-up phase one of which caught Ederson out though Nikolas Jackson failed to make the most out of it.
Chelsea played into the hands of Manchester City
Chelsea were playing about a perfect game until somewhere in the middle of the second half where they started going into their shell. Mauricio Pochettino made three defensive substitutes on the trot. This ensured they had numbers in the defensive line but that meant City had a run-in without a commendable pivot in the middle, this ensured only one-way traffic without pressure releases. The block was not as compact as ideally you’d want it to be thanks to City’s wide receivers Doku and Kyle Walker. This also meant a certain Kevin de Bruyne sensed an opportunity to find spaces just around the penalty area and a green light for Rodri to take up attacking spaces which in turn led to that deflected goal from the Spaniard.
When closing the game, Chelsea didn’t retain enough of the ball as well making up transitional attacking moves that would always be a big ask for the receiver. You could say that it was down to inexperience against the quality counter-press in such situations, something they have been on the wrong side of multiple times this season.
Maybe this could be down to Pochettino’s principle of being a naturally regressive coach where he is always thinking about scoring the next goal and finding the easiest way vs the opponent he’s against and when it’s City, that’s the counterattack.
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Many could call it down to being less clinical in front of goal but ideally, that’s not a mistake and it falls more into the skill set category.
Going ahead Chelsea would like to iron those out to ensure they not only compete against the best but also close out the games where they have the upper hand against them.