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 Wilders 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 Wilders great defensive tactics, the inability of Chelsea to break down the defensive block and how changes from Lampard in the second half didnt 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.
Chelseas 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, couldnt 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.
Weve 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
