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Antonio Conte has done a superb job since his appointment as Chelsea manager in the summer of 2016. Taking an unfancied Blue’s side from 10th to Premier League Champions within one season was a sensational achievement.
The Italian coach has proved he is an excellent tactician throughout his career and has barely put a foot wrong since his arrival at Stamford Bride. However, there is no denying that his approach to Saturday’s home defeat to Manchester City cost his team.
Conte set his team up as if they were playing an away match. The idea of soaking up pressure and playing on the counter against such an attack-minded team as Manchester City, is not necessarily a bad thing.
However, from the off, it was obvious that Chelsea were paying Pep Guardiola’s side too much respect and seemed more concerned with not losing than trying to force a positive result themselves.
Make no mistake this was not a three-centre-backs-and-two-wing-backs formation, this was a back-five.
Against a team, who due to Sergio Aguero’s injury, were always going to play with Gabriel Jesus as a lone centre-forward.
Playing three centre-backs against one forward was unnecessary. On reflection an additional player in midfield would have been more beneficial to negate the talent of the brilliant Kevin De Bruyne and David Silva.
Obviously the injury to Alvaro Morata was a massive turning point in the match, but Conte’s decision to replace the Spain international with Willian was bizarre.
Eden Hazard who had been playing in the number 10 role behind Morata was then asked to play as centre-forward with Willian moving into the Belgian’s original position.
When a team is under the cosh as Chelsea were for most of the game, it’s vital they have a focal point upfront. This allows the defence to relieve pressure by playing long into the front-man who holds the ball up and brings others into play.
Expecting Hazard, who has no experience of playing in that role to perform this task was misguided. Naturally, every time the ball went long to the Belgium international it almost immediately came back at Chelsea, and the pressure they were under just continued to build and build.
This decision was only exacerbated with Michy Batshuayi – fresh from his Champions League heroics midweek – sitting on the bench.
When the young striker came on in the 75th minute it was noticeable how much more of a threat the home side seemed to carry just because their attack had a focal point to play off.
Of course football is a game of such fine margins, and if it had not been for De Bruyne’s wonderful finish, I may well be writing an article about what a brilliant defensive performance Chelsea put in to keep City goalless. But, the fact is that they did concede and trying to do nothing but defend against a team as talented as Guardiola’s will rarely end well.
There is also an argument that the Stamford Bridge club were tired after their superb Champions League victory over Atletico Madrid on Wednesday.
One thing is clear however, as excellent a coach as the former Juventus man is, his tactics on Saturday did not give his team the best chance of getting a result, and it’s very rare indeed that you can say such a thing about Antonio Conte.
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