How Tuchel’s Chelsea overcame Mourinho’s unorthodox defensive system

Matches in the Premier League are coming thick and fast for Thomas Tuchel since he arrived as Chelsea boss, and his biggest test so far saw him match up against José Mourinhos Tottenham. Tottenham came into the game on the back of two disappointing performances and defeats at the hands of Liverpool and Brighton, and the game looked as though it would be a good match up for Mourinho, with his style of play contrasting Tuchels mainly possession-based approach. In the end though, it was a similarly disappointing performance from Spurs as we had seen in recent weeks, with Chelsea able to secure a 1-0 away win at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

The game saw Mourinho set his side up pragmatically to deal with Chelseas build-up, but the system itself was largely ineffective in the first half and Chelsea were able to play through and exploit it well. At the other end, this defensive system, as well as personnel, seemed to greatly reduce the counter-attacking threat of Spurs, and so the game from their point of view was a rather stale one with virtually no chances created. In this tactical analysis, we will focus mainly on this unorthodox system that was used in the first half, examining how Chelsea were able to exploit the system using positional play concepts, as well as then looking at how Spurs adjusted.

Lineups

We can see the pragmatic system that Spurs used in the first half below, with the 4-2-2-2 used. Pierre-Emile Højbjerg and Moussa Sissoko started as the holding midfielders for Spurs, while Tanguy Ndombele and Steven Bergwijn acted as narrow pressing tens. Chelsea went with a 3-4-1-2, with Mason Mount in a fluid role as a ten and Callum Hudson-Odoi and Timo Werner as the strikers.

Spurs 4-2-2-2

The aim behind Spurs 4-2-2-2 seemed to be to restrict central options for Chelsea, with basically a four-man midfield theoretically nullifying overloads in this area. The two number tens were very narrow and quite man-oriented in their pressing, in that they strictly marked the Chelsea central midfielders as we can see below. Spurs strikers were fairly passive in their role, and didnt protect the centre of the pitch.

We can see a good image of Tottenhams