adminLONDON. – Over the course of Chelsea’s past 27 matches in all competitions, in which they have been defeated just twice, there has been much debate on how to stop Antonio Conte’s juggernaut.
Many tactics have been put into practice to differing degrees of success without conclusive solutions being found.
The first theory was mirroring the Blues’ formation and deploying a three-man defence in order to directly match up against them. Such thinking was blurred, given that almost every team that tried it was using a system they were unfamiliar with against a team that practiced it regularly.
Sunderland, Bournemouth, Stoke, Leicester and Hull all came unstuck in the weeks either side of the New Year, losing 1-0, 3-0, 4-2, 3-0 and 2-0 respectively.
West Brom attempted something entirely different when they came to Stamford Bridge in December. Tony Pulis deployed four natural centre-backs across the defence and two holding midfielders to deny space to Chelsea’s attacking quintet of Diego Costa, Eden Hazard, Pedro Rodriguez, Marcos Alonso and Victor Moses.
It wasn’t designed specifically with Chelsea in mind as Pulis has used it regularly before and since, but it almost worked, with the Blues requiring a late error from Gareth McAuley and ruthless opportunism from Costa to secure a 1-0 win.
Although Chelsea lost 2-1 to West Ham in the EFL Cup in October, Conte had fielded a much-changed side, so the only real occasion when his first-choice team was defeated after starting with three centre-backs was in January’s 2-0 reverse to Tottenham.
Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino chose to match Chelsea’s formation, with the difference being that his side are used to switching between defensive formations. Not only that, but he specifically targeted a perceived weakness by exploiting Cesar Azpilicueta’s relative deficiency against the aerial ball together with Victor Moses’ defensive inexperience. – ESPN.
Online Reporter