Chelsea's biggest problem was, how difficult they found it to play through an allegedly 'weaker' opponent.
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00:00 Alright, so first off this morning I've seen a lot of stuff saying these Chelsea players
00:05 just simply aren't good enough, but let's just have a look here.
00:08 Yeah, they are.
00:10 Now I know they're beset by injuries at the minute, but that is still a back four with
00:13 strength, experience, pace, got a lot of good qualities.
00:17 They've still got on paper the best double pivot in the entire Premier League, like Caicedo
00:21 and Fernandes should be dominating every single game they're in.
00:25 It's a really talented front three and I know Connor Gallagher gets a lot of stick, but
00:29 that is the perfect player to have in that position because he can drop in in the build
00:33 up, he can help when they need help there, he can go out to either flank, he likes to
00:36 get into the box, he's got a goal in him.
00:38 He's like a really functional, really useful number 10.
00:42 But the problem Chelsea had was that in Middlesbrough's line-up they were bringing their two major
00:48 Achilles heels.
00:49 First of all, the ability to form a compact low block with these players, but more importantly
00:54 just a willingness and a determination to work really hard off the ball.
00:59 And if you've got both of those things, as we've seen this season, you've got a really
01:03 good chance of beating Chelsea.
01:05 Just to sort of prove it's not really to do with ability, this isn't even Middlesbrough's
01:10 final form.
01:11 They're missing something like 14 first team players.
01:14 They lost two during the course of the game.
01:16 They just knew what they were doing.
01:18 So even though they weren't at their best and they probably weren't offering as much
01:20 of a threat as they would have liked, they were still organised.
01:24 If there's one thing Chelsea simply hate, it's other teams just being organised.
01:29 Actually, just really quick before we get bogged down in everything that went wrong
01:32 here, I want to give the proper, correct amount of credit to this Middlesbrough team.
01:36 Because this is so far being reported this morning as a catastrophe for Chelsea.
01:40 And obviously it is, they didn't play very well.
01:42 But Borough, I don't want them getting lost in this.
01:44 I thought they were excellent.
01:45 Dale Fry, who we'll talk more about in a minute, I thought was just absolutely imperious at
01:49 the back.
01:50 And Barleza, who I once saw play in an FA Cup game for Newcastle and thought, "Ooh,
01:54 he looks like a tidy player."
01:56 He was magnificent.
01:57 In fact, if you grabbed a space alien from the sky and said, "Watch Barleza and watch
02:02 Fernandes and then tell me which of the two is the £100 million World Cup winner and
02:07 which is the £900k bargain from Rotherham," they would say...
02:11 [MUFFLED SPEECH]
02:17 And that would be fair enough.
02:18 So just huge credit to Michael Carrick as well, because this is already a Middlesbrough
02:21 side down to the bare bones.
02:23 And when they lost two of these players in the first, like, what, 20 minutes, he didn't
02:27 just alter the personnel, but he managed to alter the shape.
02:30 Okay, so Chelsea.
02:31 Now first off, they did have their chances.
02:34 They probably should have scored.
02:35 They probably should have won the game.
02:37 But crucially, they did not.
02:39 And if this was the first kind of defeat they'd had like this, this season, you just write
02:42 it off as a bad day at the office and say, "Oh, well, we'll do them in the return leg."
02:46 This happens time and time again to this group of players.
02:50 Why?
02:51 Well, in total, Chelsea had 18 chances.
02:54 I've overlaid them onto the pitch here so you can see them.
02:56 And the first thing you'll notice is absolutely loads of them are from miles and miles away.
03:01 As they get frustrated, they struggle to break teams down.
03:04 Someone just has a shot.
03:05 Like these five that are absolutely miles out, they're all from a different player.
03:08 Like it's Fernandes, Caicedo, Parma, Gallagher and Di Zardi.
03:12 So it's a team-wide problem.
03:13 It's not just that one person really fancies themselves from distance.
03:17 But nonetheless, there is a little cluster right in front of the goal in that area where
03:20 you always feel like you should score from.
03:22 So let's look at all of those.
03:24 So first up in the 29th minute, we have this chance from Levi Colwell.
03:28 It's a header with two players around him and it's back to goal.
03:31 Not a good chance.
03:32 Next up is the really, really bad Cole Parma miss.
03:34 And yes, he should absolutely bury this.
03:36 But this is not a good chance Chelsea created.
03:39 It's from a long-range effort that the goalkeeper spills.
03:42 Which incredibly fortunate it even falls to him in the first place.
03:45 So a good chance, but not them making a good chance.
03:49 After that, we've got this from Manduike in the 52nd minute.
03:52 A ball just sort of clipped into the box.
03:54 He does get his head to it, but there's two players between him and the goal.
03:57 You're never going to score that.
03:59 A couple of minutes later, we've got this from Connor Gallagher who starts with his
04:02 back to goal and kind of tries to wriggle around the defender and swings a leg at it.
04:06 It rolls past the post.
04:07 Again, not a good chance.
04:10 And then finally, there is this, which actually took me a while to find in the footage.
04:14 This is De Zazie having an attempt at goal from within the six-yard box.
04:19 But as you can see, it's just a bouncing ball that he's reaching out for.
04:23 And I think he just toe pokes it gently towards the net.
04:27 It is also not a good chance.
04:29 And then of course, I do all of these, the other really good Cole Parma chance that he
04:33 should score.
04:34 But where did that come from?
04:35 It's not them tearing the championship side open.
04:38 It's not them having more ideas than Burak can live with.
04:41 Someone's brain just falls out and they give it to him.
04:43 So bottom line here, they had loads of chances, but they didn't have any good chances.
04:48 So why not?
04:49 Well, the easiest way I can think of explaining it is that this is genuinely a really good
04:54 team, but it is a team so reliant on individual moments of brilliance and skill to make things
05:00 happen that when game states stop that happening, because the opposition are really well organized
05:04 or they're denying your space, they have no idea how to break teams down as a team.
05:10 So in the second half, Middlesbrough have lost two players and they've got a lead to
05:14 defend.
05:15 They go into this 4-4-2 low block that just denies all of the space in the central part
05:20 of the pitch.
05:21 And what this is supposed to force teams to do is to effectively just horseshoe until
05:24 the clock runs out.
05:25 So you go wide because that's where the space is, but there's nothing you can really do
05:29 with it from this position.
05:30 So you go back slowly bit by bit, all the way around to the other side, and it goes
05:34 again.
05:35 Now there are two ways you can unpick a low block, right?
05:37 The first is the 90s solution whereby you just had two centre forwards that were usually
05:41 quite big, and when the ball did go out wide, you could just hang it up in there.
05:45 It didn't even have to be a good cross, but they would compete for it and maybe you'd
05:48 get a knockdown.
05:49 But Chelsea obviously don't have Andy Carroll and Duncan Ferguson up front.
05:52 They had Cole Palmer and Raheem Sterling.
05:54 So you've got to do it the modern way, which is through movement.
05:58 While you're passing it around, your players in your front line, you have to move the opposition
06:02 around to create pockets of space where other players can then get in.
06:06 So just a small example of how that might work.
06:08 You've got a centre midfielder who's come over here and a full back here, and your wide
06:11 attacker, he is sort of touch tight with one of the full backs, but maybe he drifts inside
06:16 looking like he's going to receive the pass here, takes the defender with him, and the
06:19 full back uses that opportunity to get in.
06:22 They play a ball around the corner or over the top, and then you're in.
06:24 And while yes, that requires ability to pull off, the most important thing is it requires
06:29 understanding and it requires coordination, and Chelsea just do not have that.
06:34 Here is just a frankly staggering example from the second half.
06:38 Okay, Chelsea are doing the horseshoe thing.
06:40 They're trying to find the space.
06:42 They're trying to make something happen.
06:43 But look at the movement being offered by all those players in the front line.
06:48 There is absolutely nothing.
06:49 And then in the end, completely short of ideas, they just stick a ball into a box, which Middlesbrough
06:54 quite happily gobble up.
06:56 An unbelievable 32 crosses Chelsea put into the box last night against Middlesbrough.
07:02 That is a cross like every three minutes.
07:05 And would you like to know how many of those crosses were successful?
07:08 Four.
07:09 That is not a viable route to goal in this game.
07:13 And yet it was all they had every three minutes.
07:16 And the thing is, this happens to all the big clubs.
07:19 Teams will try and low block them and force them to do this.
07:21 It's not just Chelsea who find themselves in this position.
07:24 But the difference with Chelsea is that they find themselves in this position for the entirety
07:29 of their matches.
07:30 It seems to be the state they're permanently in.
07:33 Like here it is in the first half when Middlesbrough aren't even sitting particularly deep.
07:37 They're still sort of pressing them up to the halfway line and they just can't find
07:41 a way through the middle.
07:42 They're passing it from side to side.
07:44 And it's so stupid and so frustrating to watch this because my brothers in Christ, you have
07:51 Moises Caicedo.
07:52 Like this is the thing I cannot get my head around with this Chelsea team.
07:55 Like if you were watching this happen time and time again, and either they hadn't signed
07:59 Caicedo or he was just injured, you'd say, well, that's the solution.
08:03 They need a player like that who can receive the first pass out of defence, who can break
08:07 that press and can get them up through the middle.
08:09 And the whole reason you get a player like that, the whole reason he looked so good at
08:12 Brighton was because when the opposition begin to press you and you convince them to push
08:16 up a little bit and commit a little bit further forward, you've got that player in Caicedo
08:21 who can receive the ball with his back to the opposition in a tight area with them all
08:26 around him and then play out.
08:28 The amount of times last season Caicedo found himself in this exact perilous position for
08:33 Brighton and would get turned, beat a man and have them away.
08:38 Just a lost count of it.
08:39 His entire job is to be in positions where the opposition think they can get him or where
08:43 they think they've got him marked.
08:45 You get the ball into him and he evades them.
08:47 He beats that press.
08:49 He gets you up the pitch.
08:50 Think if Chelsea have got the ball at the back here somewhere and you are the red team,
08:54 you're probably looking at this situation thinking, "Aha, there's nothing they can do
08:57 here.
08:58 We've got a really good handle on them."
08:59 What used to happen at Brighton was that ball would get fired into him.
09:02 These three would smell blood and close in and either the other midfielder would have
09:06 slipped his marker, the pass would go straight in there or one of the full backs would have
09:09 been away and the pass would go in there or he'd just do one of them and that's, they're
09:13 up, they're away, they're flying up the pitch, they've got overloads.
09:16 He's killed you.
09:17 Let's just go back to that clip in the first half, all right, and watch Caicedo.
09:21 Does he at any point in this move look like a player in any danger of receiving the ball?
09:26 All Thiago Silva needs to do here is just play the ball to Caicedo and I know there
09:31 is a man in the way, but look at the gap that he's got to put that ball through.
09:35 He can just put it slightly to the left of Caicedo.
09:37 It's Thiago Silva.
09:38 He can just put a little bit of outside on it and get it around him.
09:41 And if that goes into Caicedo there, then either he drops off a first-time ball for
09:44 Fernandes here who is away into all this space or when this lad here smells blood and decides
09:51 to try and go on to him, he can just get around him.
09:54 He's a much better player and if they do that, they're in, they're in through the middle,
09:58 the promised land.
09:59 Instead, they just keep knocking it around from left to right and Middlesbrough sit off
10:03 and sit off and the space disappears.
10:05 And here is the exact same thing again in the second half.
10:08 Like the way you're supposed to defend against Caicedo is to drop your line of press behind
10:13 him so there's nobody for him to beat.
10:15 Middlesbrough have taken the bait.
10:17 They've pushed up.
10:18 He's between their press and still they don't find him with the ball.
10:22 Like I know technically he's surrounded by Middlesbrough players here, but the whole
10:26 reason they spent that much money on him is because he's supposed to be good enough that
10:30 that isn't a problem for him.
10:32 That's his whole thing.
10:33 Accurate, incisive pass, which if you're in a team like Chelsea, you should be able to
10:37 do with your eyes closed.
10:39 Get all three of these players out of the equation and then Caicedo's ability probably
10:44 takes the next one as well.
10:45 And honestly, this first pass out of defence is killing this Chelsea team.
10:50 Like I had a look at the average positions, right, for everybody last night.
10:54 I'll overlay them here.
10:55 How on earth is Enzo Fernandes receiving the ball in deeper positions than Caicedo is?
11:02 I know Fernandes gets a little bit of criticism for his chance creation, both in terms of
11:07 the quality of it and the quantity of it, but that's never going to change if he's having
11:11 to drop all the way back there to receive the ball.
11:15 And you just take all that disorganisation and that lack of direction and lack of an
11:19 idea and you put it up against a Middlesbrough side who, despite being on the bones of their
11:24 arse in terms of personnel, are organised, are well drilled and are determined, then
11:29 you're gonna lose.
11:31 All they were looking to do was invite Chelsea on, stay disciplined and try and hit them
11:36 in the space they invariably left and they did.
11:39 They did it in the first half and they scored this goal from it and they could have done
11:43 it again.
11:44 They were really good last night, Middlesbrough.
11:45 Like I was so, so impressed with them, but they weren't good in any way that sort of
11:49 marks Michael Carrick out as some kind of tactical genius.
11:52 They just did the things that Chelsea don't like and did them really well.
11:57 And there's no reason they can't do that at Stamford Bridge either.
12:01 But yes, whatever side of this you are on, I do hope you enjoyed that.
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12:19 Anyway, you can get me on Twitter @adamcleary.
12:21 C-L-E-R-Y.
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12:26 Can I reach the mark?
12:27 Yes, I can.
12:28 That is still in all good retailers and the bad ones too.
12:29 But until next time, me, Adam, Chelsea, bad, Middlesbrough, good, possibly may even win
12:36 the next game.