Halfway into the season and Sarris men are still caught vulnerable in the defensive phases. Being offensively flexible tactically led to their win over Watford, but lacking was defensive discipline. This tactical analysis explains how Chelsea were very exposed when defending in transitions due to their lack of defensive discipline.
Chelseas lack of defensive discipline
With their quick, vertical tiki-taka approach, the Blues were able to breach Watfords half and sustain their play for a good part of the first half. Dominating with 65% of the overall possession, most of the action was carried out in Chelsea’s offensive half. As a result of the visitors’ quick penetration into the attacking region, their defensive line also became very high. This is shown in the match-shots below.
Moving the backline up high is not any weakness itself, but not maintaining the discipline to organise it back when transitioning to the defending phases surely is. Chelsea, as they have demonstrated in other fixtures, clearly lacked the defensive discipline they would need to uphold the positional and tactical order. Even though compared to the advanced players, Chelsea’s defence preferred to stay low along with Jorginho, they were still positioned beyond the protecting range of their goal area – not accounting for their capability to fall back in a timely and coordinated manner.
Chelsea likely to be hit on transitions
Chelsea’s lack of defensive discipline caused them to concede the equaliser in the concluding moments of the first half. As expected, the backline ignored the major part of the goal area while defending, as shown in the picture below. This triggered Kepa to leave his region in an unbalanced attempt to save Doucoures shot thus conceding a corner.
