Premier League 2019/20: Sheffield United vs Chelsea – tactical analysis
With three games left to play in the competition, the battle for European places in the Premier League becomes more and more interesting. While Liverpool and Manchester City establishing their places as the first and second-best teams in England, the other five teams in the top seven keep going up and down the league table with each passing game.
Chelsea and Leicester were the obvious candidates for the other two Champions League spots, but their bad runs of results since the restart opened the opportunity for clubs like Manchester United and Wolves to get into the contention. Chris Wilder’s Blades are also dreaming about playing in Europe next season, and the game against Chelsea showed their ambitions. Sheffield United cruised to victory in a great fashion, scoring three goals with David McGoldrick finally breaking into the scene.
In this tactical analysis, I will look into Wilder’s great defensive tactics, the inability of Chelsea to break down the defensive block and how changes from Lampard in the second half didn’t alter the outlook of the game.
Lineups
Chris Wilder stuck with the same lineup he used in the game against Wolves, only with Sharp making a place for McGoldrick to play alongside McBurnie. As in most games this season, Sheffield United went with their 3-5-2 formation.
Frank Lampard, on the other hand, made two changes compared to their previous game against Crystal Palace: Jorginho came back into the lineup after a long spell, replacing Gilmour, and Abraham replaced Giroud in the striking position.
Chelsea’s static build-up
At the end of the day, Chelsea recorded 76% of possession, however, they had not managed to create anything meaningful out of that massive amount of time on the ball. The return of Jorginho into the lineup implied a lot of possession for the visitors. The other two players in midfield, Barkley and Mount, couldn’t replicate what they did in the previous game against Crystal Palace, and that is progressing the ball through their runs. Also, having both these players as 8s in this match meant the possibility of positional rotations with the wingers, Willian and Pulisic.
We’ve seen this pattern in previous games when wingers moved inside when the 8s drifted wide, and it happened in this game as well, but with less efficiency. The hosts’ aggressive man-marking approach limited the time on the ball for the Chelsea players to receive and play through.
The pair of centre-backs in Zouma and Christensen were positioning wide, and Jorginho was isolated on his own for the entire game without much help. McGoldrick and McBurnie were focused on the centre-backs, alternately switching on to Jorginho when the ball was leaving the feet of Zouma and Christensen. In the first half, two central midfielders in Osborn and Berge were marking the full-backs when they received the ball, as shown in the image below. Hence, James and Azpilicueta were forced to play long under pressure.
With the Italian operating as a single pivot, Chelsea were limited in the build-up phase, because playing through the flanks with Sheffield double-teaming the wingers in constrained spaces, even if Chelsea advance the ball, was not a good way to create chances by any means. Kovacic would’ve offered one more dimension to Chelsea’s build-up with his ability on the ball and different passing style compared to Jorginho. With these two playing in a double pivot, the team would’ve exploited their attacking patterns more efficiently in the final third.
In order to support Jorginho in the centre, either Pulisic or one of the central midfielders would drop deeper to offer a passing option. However, the receiving player was heavily marked by the opposition, and thus his only opportunity was to make a back pass. Here you can see Pulisic dropping deeper to receive the ball from Zouma, but he is being pressured from behind and forced to play to the flanks.
Changes in the second half from Chelsea
For the second half, Lampard switched his formation to 3-4-3 with Mount and Christensen coming off and Alonso and Rüdiger coming on. Azpilicueta started playing as a right-sided centre-back, and with him and Alonso on the left, Chelsea had two good crossers down both flanks. This change of formation also was also meant to create more favourable conditions for Jorgihno, who was playing in a double pivot together with Barkley from that moment on. Despite the bright start of the half, the players didn’t manage to turn things around in their favour.

Attacking strategy of Sheffield United
Despite having only 24% of the possession in the game, Sheffield United players made great use of it, netting three goals. In their periods of sustained possession, they played in their easily recognisable manner, with a lot of positional rotations on the flanks and with centre-backs making runs into the final third.
Sheffield United only had a couple of attacks in the first half which ended up in a shot. Below you can see a snapshot of the play before the goal, with Stevens playing quick one-two combination with Osborn. This simple exchange of passes cut off two Chelsea players and created an open crossing position for Stevens, who found McBurnie in the box.
Targeting Jorginho
Jorginho is brilliant playing under pressure and he is great at finding open zones, but his composure defensively raises questions. He became the target for long balls from Henderson in this game, and McGoldrick was able to keep possession a couple of time for Sheffield after an aerial duel with the Italian. The forward was also the one who single-handedly created a lot of big chances, including the final goal, for his team after 1 v 1 duels against Jorginho. Below I illustrated one of those moments, with McGoldrick putting Mousset 1 v 1 against Arrizabalaga after a bad touch from Jorginho.
Conclusion
The win over Chelsea meant the end of a very impressive run from Sheffield United against London clubs: six wins and four draws in ten games. The defensive masterclass shown by Chris Wilder’s men also meant that Chelsea could drop into the fifth position if Leicester and Manchester United win their respective games. Both teams have tough opponents left in the remainder of the season, and I am pretty sure we will see the battle for top four unfold until the very end.