Chelsea failed to make it five wins from five in the Premier League since Liam Rosenior took charge, drawing 2-2 with Leeds United at Stamford Bridge.
The Blues dominated the first half at Stamford Bridge, limiting Leeds to just one shot worth 0.01 Expected Goals. They also held 65% possession and led at half-time through Joao Pedro.
However, thinsg went wrong in the second half. Despite generating 2.63 xG and creating four big chances, Chelsea were unable to put the game to bed. They did go 2-0 up through a Cole Palmer penalty, but a flurry of errors saw the game end 2-2.
In this article, we’ll cover
Build up strategy
Rosenior’s first half strategy worked a treat, pulling the Leeds 5-4-1 press apart, utilising a 2-4-4 shape in the initial build up.
Enzo Fernandez and Malo Gusto dropped in to occupy the full-back zones, dragging the Leeds wide midfielders away from the centre, giving the Blues a 4v3 in the middle of the park.
Trevoh Chalobah, Josh Acheampong, Andrey Santos and Moises Caicedo formed the box shape in build up at the base, outnumbering Lukas Nmecha, Ethan Ampadu and Ilia Gruev in the middle of the park.
With Chelsea successfully pulling the Leeds pressing shape apart, Cole Palmer was able to pick up the pockets of space behind the midfield line, consistently causing problems for Farke’s side.
With Pedro constantly moving across the three central defenders to pin them and Palmer making counter movements to create tensions for those defenders, Leeds were unable to effectively jump out of their 5-4-1 shape and pick up Palmer between the lines.
Andrey Santos the heartbeat
The heartbeat of Rosenior’s side since his arrival has been Andrey Santos, a player he worked with at Strasbourg last season.
Santos clearly understands Rosenior’s principles of play and what he wants from his midfield unit, consistently looking to shift the tempo between a lower controlled tempo in deeper phases, and a higher forward thinking tempo with his line splitting passes.
Caicedo and Santos give Chelsea a technical and physical foundation in the side, controlling the build up but also playing an important part in the rest defence, allowing Chelsea’s full-backs to push higher, especially against sides in a back five.
The Brazilian midfielder has extremely high game intelligence, the technical quality to play disguised passes between the lines and the tenacity to break up play when it comes back the other way.
Rosenior described Santos as an “intangibles player”, stating that he does things in games that people don’t see, so it is clear why the new Chelsea head coach values the midfielder so much.
Enzo Fernandez & Cole Palmer dynamic
The dynamic between the positioning of Fernandez and Palmer was very interesting in this game, as both occupied different zones on and off the ball.
We saw Rosenior utilise Fernandez on the left against Wolves, with Cucurella bombing forward to play in the attacking unit, allowing Fernandez to drop in, get touches in deeper areas and then arrive higher in the left half space between the lines.
However, while this role was the same against Leeds for Fernandez on the ball, Palmer’s role affected how they set up off the ball.
On the ball, Fernandez would occupy areas predominantly on the left, giving Palmer more of a free role as the No.10, drifting all over the pitch to create overloads and receive with separation from his markers.
But off the ball, the pair would swap positions, allowing Palmer to stay on the left, covering Sebastiaan Bornauw at right centre-back, who would rarely go forwards, giving Palmer less responsibility off the ball.
Fernandez would come inside, covering Ampadu in the defensive midfield position, putting more emphasis on the central press with both Fernandez and Caicedo in there, while Santos dropped into the back five off the ball to match up with Leeds’ front five when going forwards.
Errors costly once more
The first half performance was perhaps the best so far under Rosenior for Chelsea, putting together some lovely sequences of play that resembled the type of football the new head coach wants his side to play.
But once again, as has been a theme this season, Chelsea imploded with self inflicted errors, having a shaky six minute period which cost the Blues two points.
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In the 67th minute, Caicedo put in a silly challenge just inside the box, giving away a penalty and allowing Leeds to make it 2-1, putting the game back in the balance.
Following the goal, Chelsea were unable to take the sting out of the game by putting passes together, leading to a period of back and forth direct play, which eventually resulted in a comedy of errors leading to Leeds’ second goal.
The Blues nearly rescued it at the death, but Palmer put the ball over from just a few yards out, after a lovely worked passage between Caicedo and Pedro to manufacture a crossing opportunity.
Plenty of positives for Rosenior to take from this game, but he will also be aware that these errors and tendencies to switch off for periods in games, is not acceptable if Chelsea want to improve and challenge for major honours.