With Arsenal losing their earlier contest against West Ham, Maurizio Sarri and his Chelsea squad had the extra motivation of potentially separating themselves in the top four. While Chelsea have lost only one of their last 12 home matches, they came into this match against Newcastle without a goal in their previous two games. They are in their best form since the beginning of the season after three wins and one draw in their previous five games. Their only defeat in that run came at the hands of Tottenham.
Rafa Benitez’s Newcastle squad are in their worst top-flight form since the 1988/89 campaign. They have also lost nine straight matches heading into this clash against Chelsea. With only 15 goals in 21 matches heading into this contest, scoring had been a real issue for the Magpies. Benitez’s staple is to be extremely disciplined defensively, but has found his defence regularly broken down by the top teams. An issue is his team has not been able to sustain enough attacking pressure, as this tactical analysis will explore.
Sarri set up his squad in a 4-3-3 formation with Hazard playing the role of a false nine, which does not suit his skill set to its fullest extent. He does provide their best threat going forward, but this set-up played into the hands of Benitez. Newcastle played in a 5-4-1, with the objective of Deandre Yedlin and Matt Ritchie pushing forward into the attack.
The reason that this makes Newcastle harder to breakdown is that a true target-man provides more options for when the ball gets out wide, which is not Hazard’s strong suite. This limited Chelsea’s attack throughout the game, especially during the first half against Benitez’s low block.
