FAWSL 2019/20: Chelsea Women vs Bristol City Women – tactical analysis

Matchday 12 of the FAWSL delivered an interesting matchup between Chelsea Women and Bristol City Women. Chelsea currently sit just outside of Champions League qualification but have just acquired one of the best players on Earth in striker Sam Kerr. Bristol City sit just above the relegation zone but have given up the most goals in the entire league. Through analysis, we see that Chelsea employed aggressive positional tactics, while Bristol City chose a conservative counter-attacking approach.

Would the impending Chelsea juggernaut roll over the struggling Bristol City defence? This tactical analysis will look into exactly what happened.

Line ups

Chelsea (4-4-2): Berger, Blundell, Bright, Carter, Andersson, Spence, Ingle, Cuthbert, Ji, Reiten, England.

Bristol City (4-4-2): Baggaley, Matthews, Dykes, Evans, Sargeant, Daniels, Brown, Chance, Pattinson, Hughes, Salmon.

Chelsea: switching the point of attack

With an arsenal of attackers adorning the team sheet, Chelsea manager Emma Hayes has the ability to employ a variety of attacking tactics depending on the opponent at hand. One week we see aggressive vertical combination play through the flanks. Another week we primarily see direct balls into space behind to darting strikers. This week we saw Chelsea employ an attacking structure meant to use the full width of the pitch to drag the Bristol City defensive block back and forth across the field.

By setting up an expanded and staggered team shape, Chelsea were able to play the ball to one side of the pitch without committing too many players to the flank. When the ball was played to a flank, the Bristol City defensive block would naturally drift to the flank as well to smother any potential Chelsea attacks. Chelsea would retain possession of the ball on the flank to draw in the Bristol City players as far as possible. Once the Bristol city midfield line and all but the far defender on the defensive line had been drawn away from the far flank and halfspace, Chelsea would look to switch the point of attack to the now open far flank.

By employing a diagonal cross, Chelsea were able to switch the point of attack to waiting attackers on the far side of the pitch. As the ball landed on the far side of the field, Chelsea would suddenly be in a 1v1 or 2v1 situation against the far-side Bristol City fullback. This attacking tactic lead to many quality chances on goal.

Chelsea began using this tactic from the very outset of the match. In the fourteenth minute, we see that Chelsea have played the ball down the right flank. In this moment three Chelsea attackers are in the flank channel with little to no access to central areas through the halfspace. This is a major indicator that Chelsea are about to play over/around the Bristol city block and not through it.

The three Chelsea attackers trade passes, but do not advance past the Bristol midfield line. Slowly the Bristol City block is drawn over. In the image below we can see that the entire Bristol City midfield line is on the right side of the pitch. Off-camera, Beth England is holding a central position to occupy the Bristol City centrebacks.

Once most of the Bristol block has been drawn to the right side of the pitch, Chelsea play the ball backwards to Sophie Ingle who is waiting in the right halfspace. Ingle immediately plays a diagonal cross to the left flank.

As the ball arrives, we see that Ji So-Yun is completely isolated on the left flank with the ball arriving at her feet. Guro Reiten has pushed in the now large gap between the Bristol City right-back and centre-back. Chelsea suddenly have a 2v1 situation in the attacking third with two of their most dangerous players.