Why Chelsea Can Beat Liverpool For The Carabao Cup
Chelsea go into the Carabao Cup Final against Liverpool as massive underdogs... if you believe the odds. But after an impressive showing against Manchester City, Adam Clery thinks they might have stumbled across a winning formula just in time.
Transcript
00:00 Hello everybody, the croaky husk of Adam Cleary here, you are watching 442 and I'm sure it's
00:08 not escaped your attention but it's the Carabao Cup final this weekend.
00:12 The most prestigious trophy in all of sport that happens to be sponsored by a Shan version
00:17 of Red Bull.
00:18 Alright so, first things first, okay, you put a loaded gun to my head and you ask me
00:22 who I think's gonna win this game, I will wet my pants and sob uncontrollably, ask who
00:27 you are and why are you doing this but eventually I will probably say Liverpool.
00:32 However, if we look at two of their most recent fixtures, the 1-1 draw they got against Manchester
00:36 City and the 4-1 hammering Liverpool gave them last time they met, there is a lot of
00:40 stuff in there that suggests you shouldn't write them off.
00:46 Now come the actual final, we expect Chelsea to line up like this.
00:50 I would say in fact the only question mark in this entire team is whether or not he goes
00:54 with Raheem Sterling from the start or whether he considers him an option for later in the
00:57 game.
00:58 And if it is this exact 11 then it's unchanged from the Manchester City game where I think
01:02 it's fair to say Chelsea really did surprise a lot of people.
01:06 They seemed to be well organised at the back, they were intense with their press and they
01:09 could very easily have gone and won that game just as easily as Man City could have.
01:14 There was just something about Chelsea, specifically in the way that sort of Galaga, Fernandes
01:19 and Caicedo function as a unit but obviously spread throughout the rest of the team that
01:23 felt like it was just finally clicking into place.
01:26 But before that though, please step inside my time machine as we go all the way back
01:31 to Chelsea 1 Liverpool 4 where they went to Anfield and got their pants pulled down.
01:37 Now as we discussed in a whole other video on the channel which I hope I'm pointing out
01:41 otherwise I'm going to look really silly, Chelsea lost that game because they committed
01:44 the cardinal sin of being stuck between two philosophies for playing against a really
01:50 good attacking team.
01:51 They held this incredibly high line against Liverpool, pushing their defenders up to the
01:56 halfway line on occasion which is fine, nothing wrong with that individually but they were
02:00 also being really passive in how they pressed their defenders and their midfielders.
02:05 Or to put that another way, they were leaving loads of space in behind whilst simultaneously
02:10 giving Liverpool loads of time on the ball in which to find it.
02:14 And you just cannot do that I'm afraid.
02:17 Like if you want to have a high line you've got to press with a bit of intensity and if
02:20 you don't want to press with a bit of intensity then you've got to sit deep.
02:23 You can't get caught between those two ideas because then Liverpool will absolutely smash
02:29 you.
02:30 And what we saw in that game is something we've seen from Chelsea quite a lot this season.
02:33 Like Conor Gallagher is probably one of the best pressing attacking midfielders in the
02:37 league.
02:38 Like we brought his numbers up in our review of the Crystal Palace game and they are absolutely
02:41 extraordinary.
02:42 But all this here, as good as it looks, is not what pressing is.
02:46 That's just one man chasing a ball down.
02:48 Pressing is when you have an organised structure to do it as a team with specific ways you're
02:53 trying to turn the ball over.
02:54 And as we saw several times, Conor Gallagher will do all the hard work and nobody really
03:00 goes with him.
03:01 Now whether that's a lack of effort from his teammates or it is actually Chelsea's game
03:05 plan just to let him do it on his own doesn't really matter.
03:08 It just doesn't work.
03:09 And so with no real pressure on the ball, Liverpool have a lot of players in their midfield
03:12 and the defence who can pick a pass like I can pick my nose and they kept getting in
03:17 behind or around Chelsea almost for fun.
03:20 So not unfairly, Chelsea went into that Manchester City game and people thought a similar thing
03:25 is probably going to happen.
03:26 They're going to give them too much time on the ball, City are going to play into that
03:28 space and they could absolutely do them.
03:31 But they didn't.
03:32 And in fact, in that City game, Chelsea were so much better off the ball, they were so
03:36 good out of possession, that Man City kept having to make little tactical tweaks all
03:40 over the pitch to try and fix the problems they were causing.
03:44 I'm just going to show you the average positions of the Chelsea side in that Manchester City
03:48 game because it's just so much better structured and more organised than we've seen them in
03:52 a lot of big games this season.
03:53 You can see there's a really good shape to their back four.
03:56 Gusto obviously pushing on a little bit higher than Chilwell, but both of them able to get
03:59 down the flanks when they're able and Caicedo for once actually able to get involved in
04:04 this sort of space between all four defenders.
04:07 Enzo Fernandez, rather than getting pulled all the way up, trying to be the main creative
04:10 threat is actually pretty close to Caicedo.
04:13 He was deep, he got involved, he helped with the build up, he helped with the pressure.
04:16 Conor Gallagher as well is not getting pulled all over the place.
04:18 He's actually much closer to Fernandez and Caicedo than he normally is.
04:22 Stirling and Jackson are the two most attacking threats both centrally and down the left.
04:25 But the really interesting one here is Cole Palmer.
04:29 Now Cole Palmer on the right for Chelsea is very interesting because he very rarely stays
04:33 on the right.
04:34 Normally what will happen is that Conor Gallagher will end up getting a bit closer to his two
04:37 central midfielders and Palmer will fill into this number 10 position.
04:41 Or alternatively when Jackson will drop out into the flanks to receive the ball, Palmer
04:44 will just go and play up front himself.
04:46 But in this game, and I'll just put everybody back where they're supposed to be, this is
04:50 Cole Palmer's heat map.
04:51 Now on the one hand they are playing Manchester City so you would expect him to drop off and
04:55 probably be a little bit deeper, but he was having the bulk of his influence on this game
04:59 from this almost sort of like classic right wing position.
05:03 Not forward in any sort of way, sort of a wide midfielder.
05:06 Now we just look at this for a little second, right, okay, and then we compare it to Malagusa
05:11 Stow's heat map instead.
05:12 You'll see it's not that City were forcing them back into their own half so much because
05:16 your right back was able to get up to this area of the pitch and start to influence the
05:19 game.
05:20 Look he's even up here doing all sorts.
05:22 This was a deliberate decision by Chelsea.
05:24 Now part of the reason for this is that Man City had that sort of four in the middle which
05:28 outnumbered Chelsea 3.
05:29 So Palmer was the one who would drift across just to make sure that Kevin De Bruyne was
05:33 never getting the amount of freedom that sort of numerical advantage should have given him.
05:37 But more importantly what it was doing was by dropping off, it was forcing Nathan Ake
05:41 to sort of push it with him, creating this enormous amount of space in behind him for
05:45 Gusto to then get into.
05:47 And because Man City build up with that sort of 3-2-2 shape, it meant that Chelsea kept
05:51 finding themselves with four players in this sort of area outnumbering Manchester City.
05:57 The solution from a Man City perspective is that either Jeremy Dock who has to track all
06:01 the way back with Gusto to keep you a 4v4 there, or they have to coordinate between
06:05 him and Ake passing the other one off to each other.
06:08 And a couple of times in the game we kept seeing Palmer way deeper than the other attackers
06:12 getting on the ball and able to pick a pass in behind.
06:15 But the thing is this is mostly on the ball stuff and I did just say the thing that Chelsea
06:19 finally seemed to get right against Man City was their off the ball stuff.
06:23 Now I've just set Chelsea a little bit deeper here so you can see what I'm talking about.
06:27 We'll overlay Manchester City in their build up shape, their 3-box-3 system and that is
06:32 a Kanji, Rodri, Alvarez and De Bruyne as that square, that four players in the middle of
06:37 the pitch.
06:38 Four players crucially you do not want to mess about with.
06:41 Now Chelsea actually set a pretty decent pressing trap here.
06:44 Nicholas Jackson would push onto Diaz, Sterling was on the other side by Kyle Walker, Gallagher
06:49 would join in and press Nathan Ake and then Palmer sort of superfluous out on this side
06:55 would then just sort of drop into the middle to keep an eye on Rodri.
06:58 Caicedo and Fernandes were sort of taking turns alternating between De Bruyne and Alvarez
07:02 depending on what their movement was.
07:04 But you'll notice here this largely leaves a Kanji free.
07:07 Now that theoretically is what Man City want you to do.
07:10 You've committed three players to move onto their centre back leaving you with three versus
07:13 four in the middle so they get a spare man.
07:16 But out of all the men here who could be spare men, a Kanji is probably the one you'd be
07:21 the most happy with.
07:22 And if you've ever heard the term a pressing trap this is what one is.
07:27 Like they've created a scenario where there's an easy ball into a player but they want you
07:31 to give it to that player.
07:32 And when a Kanji did receive the ball usually with his back to Chelsea's goal either Caicedo
07:37 or Fernandes would then jump on him.
07:40 And the thing is neither of them have technically left their men because they've got them in
07:43 what's known as shadow cover.
07:45 Like they're not touch tight anymore but they're blocking the passing lane off to them so they're
07:49 pretty much marked out of the game.
07:51 But why are you pointing that out Adam?
07:52 They're playing Liverpool at the weekend.
07:54 Manuel Kanji doesn't play there and without Alexander-Arnold they're far less likely to
07:58 go for this four versus three thing in the middle and that's because it requires a level
08:03 of intensity and coordination that Chelsea haven't recently had.
08:07 Like even without Trent Alexander-Arnold Liverpool will be building up in this sort of three
08:12 two shape with sort of Endo and McAllister you would imagine in these two sitting positions.
08:16 I imagine what they'll do with the defence is they'll keep rotating between which of
08:20 the full backs is allowed to push all the way up and which one has to come across and
08:24 tuck into a three.
08:25 Neither Bradley nor Robertson are great at that but they can both do it.
08:29 And while I would certainly argue that Endo and McAllister are much better at receiving
08:33 the ball and getting turned and doing stuff with it than Manuel Kanji is, most of this
08:37 basically just comes down to how intense can you be with it.
08:40 How much do you want to close that distance?
08:42 For the first time in ages we saw both Caicedo and Fernandes really tenacious against Man
08:48 City in trying to turn this ball over and to deny them time on the ball.
08:52 But I will tell you something else that Chelsea did against Man City that they could definitely
08:56 do to Liverpool and would be a nightmare for them.
09:00 So one thing, one particularly brave thing Chelsea did against Man City was they formed
09:04 their three two using their goalkeeper.
09:06 They split both their centre backs incredibly wide, pushed the full backs forward and allowed
09:10 Fernandes and Caicedo to sort of form this build up structure.
09:14 Now the problem this caused for City is that Erling Haaland is not a pressing machine who's
09:18 going to cover three separate players.
09:20 So both the wingers, Doku and Foden, they then jumped onto the centre backs.
09:25 Which meant that Chelsea kept finding themselves in a situation where both the full backs were
09:29 the free men.
09:30 Now Haaland, De Bruyne and Rodri match up Galega, Fernandes and Caicedo really well.
09:34 They're all nicely marked and Alvarez is kind of the floating player in case Nicholas Jackson
09:38 drops away from the front line.
09:40 Now with Walker and Ake looking after Sterling and Palmer, the temptation for them becomes,
09:44 well we've got two centre backs here, there's nothing really going on.
09:47 Do we not just jump onto these two full backs and stop them being free?
09:52 And in that first half especially, they did do that.
09:54 They pushed all the way up, leaving this space in the channel and sort of hoping that Diaz
09:58 and Nakanji would then just sort of look after the two wide players.
10:01 But as we've already illustrated with this heat map, Paul Palmer wasn't playing up around
10:05 here where the centre backs could look after him.
10:07 He was dropping really, really deep.
10:09 And this just caused absolute bedlam with Man City because either Gusto could now get
10:13 in behind the full back as he was retreating or Jackson could drop wide into the space
10:17 that had left.
10:18 Or Diaz had to go with Palmer into this kind of area, just leaving so much room for Chelsea's
10:25 other attacking players to basically outnumber Nakanji 2 or 3 to 1.
10:30 Now this would be harder to do against Liverpool because they've got Alvarez there who doesn't
10:34 want to get drawn out all over the pitch chasing players around.
10:36 He wants to be doing some attacking and Liverpool have either Endo or McAllister or Gravenbercher
10:41 who are all a little bit more switched on in that regard.
10:44 But it is still doable.
10:46 Whether it's Bradley or it's Robertson, Liverpool absolutely will be leaving loads of space
10:50 down the channel and in behind.
10:52 And as Chelsea proved against Man City, they've now got two or three different options for
10:58 how they like to exploit that.
10:59 But more importantly though, the lesson they seem to have learned from the last time they
11:02 played Liverpool is not to sit too high up while you're doing it and not to half-arse
11:07 your press at the same time.
11:09 They showed against Man City that they are now capable of being compact and being hard
11:14 to play through while at the same time being coordinated enough in the middle and having
11:18 the right energy levels to go and turn the ball over.
11:21 And for all this stuff, all the systems, all the tactics, all the structures, all just
11:24 this nerd stuff, the one thing that's going to matter is that if this works, can you stick
11:30 it in the back of the net?
11:32 And they really, I've got no stats to tell you how they're going to do it, but they do
11:35 really need to do that.
11:37 So yes, that's how I think this Chelsea team can win the Carabao Cup Final.
11:41 Do I think they will win the Carabao Cup Final?
11:43 Oh mate, no I never actually said that obviously, but there is way more about them than I think
11:49 they're being credit for.
11:50 They're being written off way too easily.
11:52 Anyway, if I haven't ruined this video because I don't know how to use my new microphone,
11:55 then I hope you enjoyed it.
11:56 Please do leave us a comment below and let us know who you think is going to win on Sunday.
12:01 Not who could win, that's what this video was.
12:03 Who will win?
12:04 Anyway, I'm going to grab the latest issue of 442.
12:06 I cannot get over still how beautiful that cover is.
12:09 Lionel Messi, he's in that some way.
12:11 Grab me on Twitter, X, Instagram, anywhere you like @adamcleary, C-L-E-R-Y, 442 socials
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12:34 Anyway, yes, I'm off to have like three strepsils for lunch now.
12:37 I hope you're having a good day.
12:39 That's all I've got.
12:40 Goodbye.
12:41 Good- Goodbye.
12:42 See you Sunday.
12:43 Goodbye.
12:43 goodbye.
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