Premier League 2021/22: Chelsea’s dynamic structure in the Wolves draw – tactical analysis

Chelsea were out of the UEFA Champions League, but their season was far from ended because they had to secure a top-four position in the Premier League. Also, they were in the FA Cup final, and the players needed to be ready for it. However, on Saturday, the first day with the new owner, they suffered a 2-2 draw that felt like losing the game to Thomas Tuchel. At Stamford Bridge, Wolves were able to come back from two-goal behind to make it a draw.

The result was the result and it might not fully reflect the mixed performance of Chelsea. Of course, there were many departments they could improve, especially after the lead was established. But at the same time, the Blues also showed interesting positional structures which they executed in a very fine manner for most of the game.

This tactical analysis will have a deep study on Chelsea’s tactics with the ball, and explain why Tuchel made some changes during the game.

Lineups

Chelsea were missing some key players due to injuries, such as Jorginho and N’Golo Kanté were unavailable. Hence, Mateo Kovačić and Ruben Loftus-Cheek paired up in the midfield, but the front three were not really wingers, as the shape was more like a 5-2-1-2 without the ball and 3-1-4-2 with the ball, as Christian Pulisic did not play high and wide.

Wolves suffered from a big loss at Brighton last week, and Bruno Lage made several changes and started a strong eleven in this game. Pedro Neto and Raúl Jiménez came back to play as the strikers in the 5-3-2, Hee-Chan Hwang and Fábio Silva started on the bench. Also, Jonny Otto replaced Nélson Semedo at the right wing-back position.