UEFA Europa League 2018/19: Chelsea vs PAOK

With an early red card for PAOK Chelsea were in complete control of the game from the beginning of the match and were rarely troubled defensively. A resounding 4-0 victory and a fifth win out of five put the gloss on Chelsea’s qualification as group winners for the knockout stages of the Europa League. Two goals for Giroud provided a timely boost in confidence heading into a busy December schedule.

Sarri again made a host of changes from the regular Premier League matches, including a rare appearance for Hudson-Odoi and Ampadu gaining some minutes in his development in the second half. These changes presented an opportunity for some of the fringe players to apply pressure on those currently favoured in the premier league by Sarri.

PAOK began the match in a 4-4-1-1 formation with the plan to restrict the impact of Fabregas in the pivot position. After the red card, this became almost impossible for them to do as they fell back into a 4-4-1 which prevented access to Fabregas as Prijovic was unable to cover the distances. Sarri lined Chelsea up in their usual 4-3-3 formation, which has caused some debate in the media after their defeat by Tottenham in the most recent premier league game.

Fabregas Masterclass

With much talk after Chelsea’s defeat to Tottenham focusing on the debate surrounding the positioning of Kante within Sarri’s system, Fabregas displayed a timely reminder of why Sarri prefers a highly technical player in the pivot position. With 112 completed passes in the match, Fabregas was heavily involved in the construction of the build-up play.

Fabregas was at the heart of everything Chelsea did going forward. He offers something slightly different to Jorginho with his ability to play accurate longer passes in behind the defence. This season Fabregas averages 8.43 long passes per game in comparison to 6.05 from Jorginho. Chelsea’s build-up play displayed a heavy emphasis on creating time and space for Fabregas to be able to play forward passes into depth. This enabled Chelsea’s midfielders to position themselves higher up the pitch and threaten the PAOK defence with runs in behind their defensive line.

Pedro’s threat in behind

Pedro provides Chelsea with a different threat to both Willian and Hazard as he is more willing to threaten the space behind the oppositions defence without the ball. In particular, this proved to be a very effective attacking option for Chelsea in this match.

When Chelsea had possession in deep areas PAOK pushed higher up the field leaving plenty of space behind their defence to exploit. This was often exploited when Fabregas gained possession and as discussed earlier was allowed the time and space to receive the ball without any pressure before lifting his head and finding passes into space.

The Goals

The first Chelsea goal came again from Fabregas collecting the ball in a deep area under no pressure before playing a forward ball behind the PAOK defence for Pedro to run onto. Pedro controlled the ball before manipulating the ball and waiting for support to arrive from his teammates. Giroud moved forwards and moved into space to receive the ball just inside the penalty area before calmly passing the ball into the far corner.

The second goal of the match had a familiar feeling to it as Fabregas again was allowed far too much time on the ball to play another lofted through pass. This time Giroud made the run into space and finished spectacularly on the volley from just inside the box.

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