The below were my five key takeaways from our 1-0 Champions League loss against Juventus at Juventus Stadium on 30 September 2021.
1. Chelsea’s attacking woes continue
According to ESPN, Chelsea conjured up 16 shots and only a solitary one on target. This follows last the last outing whereby the Blues managed to not get any shots on target against Manchester City. Quite frankly, this is not good enough for a team that just won the Champions League and bolstered their attack with the signing of star striker Romelu Lukaku in the off-season.
Key to the issues for the Blues in attack are both the service being provided to Lukaku, and, the lack of composure in front of goal when an opportunity arises. In this match, both Hakim Ziyech and Kai Havertz unfortunately failed to positively inject themselves into the match.
The latter did make a genuine effort to take on defenders and run into the box but found himself losing out or misdirecting headed opportunities, including right at the end where he headed over Chilwell’s last-minute injury time corner.
Hakim Ziyech on the other hand did not offer much in terms of adding creativity or good service to Romelu and found himself frustrated on a number of occasions as he committed multiple fouls before being hooked off for Hudson-Odoi.
Not helping the cause was that the Blues did not offer any width which made it easier for Juventus to defend what was in front of them rather than being pulled out of position.
While Chelsea’s general game wasn’t troubling the home side, they did have some opportunities to equalise in the second half, most notably with Lukaku missing a well-worked one on one, and then a header from a Hudson-Odoi cross, as well as Havertz missing a couple of headers himself. Tuchel will need to get back to the drawing board and quickly figure out how his team can be more creative and purposeful with the ball.
2. Young Chiesa was the difference for ‘The Old Lady‘
During the Euros tournament, there was one player who was really making a name for himself and being targeted by many top European clubs (including Chelsea), that man was Federico Chiesa. The 23-year-old Italian international was the star of the show tonight.
Having looked dangerous in the first half with his blistering pace in transition, he was actually guilty of squandering a good chance to tee up his strike partner Federico Bernardeschi to open up the scoring. However, the signs were there and they were ominous for the Blues backline.
Then, at the start of the second half, Juventus came firing out of the blocks as Chiesa got onto a fine pass from Bernardeschi and smashed into the roof of the net beyond a helpless Mendy and despairing chase from Rudiger. If the Blues are still in the pursuit of the talented Italian, this was a fine audition indeed.
Top clubs across Europe will continue to monitor the progress of the young Italian over the next few months.
3. The low-block strikes back
For the past few seasons the no.1 enemy for Chelsea Football Club has been the dreaded ‘low block’ and more specifically, the inability of the Blues to be able to break it down. In other words, Chelsea have tended to struggle against teams who strategically set themselves up to be compact and reduce the space for the Blues to try and exploit.
For all of the praise Chelsea has received in recent times regarding their fantastically well organised defence, their issues in creating high-quality chances, particularly against teams that are comfortable in spending lots of time without the ball, continue to plague them at present.
Many questions have been asked about whether the 3-4-3, 3-4-2-1 or the most recent 3-5-2 experiment is sustainable for the medium-long term knowing that a lot of Chelsea’s opponents have figured out that deploying the low-block set up will increase their chances of a good result. Further, given the plethora of attacking talent at Tuchel’s disposal, one wonders whether there could be any structural adjustments to the side to give more of these stars an opportunity to cause havoc amongst their opponents.
Time will tell if this is a genuine cause for concern or whether this is momentary blip against two top quality sides who have done well to keep us quiet on these occasions.
4. Slow starts remain a worrying trend
Chelsea has started off the campaign in really strong fashion, at least results wise. However, the objective and critical thinking Blues fan will acknowledge that despite the favourable scores being achieved (excluding the City and Juve clashes), the reality is that the performances themselves have been questionable at times, and in some instances, simply below expectations. A consistent them amongst this alarming trend or below-par performances at times is the sluggishness of Chelsea’s start to games.
On multiple occasions this season, and again highlighted against Juventus, the Blues take the approach into matches that as long as they are controlling the ball, then they are commanding proceedings and can work their way into each contest with the mindset that the opposition will eventually succumb to their constant pressure.
However, this is a fallacy that Chelsea fans have been reminded of time and time again across a few seasons. Connected to the low block theme above, the Blues can ill-afford to keep continuing to be passive in possession and need to start off each game with greater purpose and intensity, just as they did against Crystal Palace and Arsenal.
5. Key stars missed, but more so for Chelsea
Chelsea, at least on paper, have sufficient squad depth. With the like of Mason Mount, N’Golo Kanté, Christian Pulisic and Reece James unavailable, it was always going to be interesting to see how the Blues lined-up without these key players across multiple positions. Notwithstanding the immense and differing qualities these stars bring to the team, the Blues should have been able to rely on who was available to deliver a more convincing performance.
Unfortunately the reality was that they truly missed the energy brought by Mount and Kanté, the directness and dribbling ability of Pulisic, and, the crossing capability of Reece James.
Ordinarily all of these key players wouldn’t be out at the same time but given it can happen, Tuchel will need to find a solution to be able to manage without these key players, in particular Mount and Kanté.
Credit must be given to Juventus as they were also without attacking stars Alvaro Morata and Paulo Dybala. As mentioned Chiesa and Bernardeschi did a superb job in leading the line for the Bianconeri in the absence of the above-mentioned duo. The pace and tenacity of these two would have been something Allegri would have been proud of and ensured that the loss of both Morata and Dybala can be managed, at least in the short term.
Final Comments
In summary, Chelsea were lacking the three ‘Cs’: Creativity, Confidence, Concentration.
The Blues community were expecting a resounding response following their underwhelming performance against Manchester City. Despite facing a different type of opponent i.e. one set up to be more strategically pragmatic as opposed to Manchester City were aggressive with their press and counter press, Chelsea struggled yet again to impose themselves and generate many genuine goal scoring chances. This will undoubtedly be a priority for Tuchel as he dissects and analyses the Blues’ recent displays.
The positive will be that Chelsea will be welcoming back some of their key stars soon and should they be able to put in an improved performance and get a win against Southampton, they can use the international break to really focus on improving their stuttering attack and come back fresh post-break.
The context is Chelsea are still in control of their Champions League destiny, and, they are third in the Premier League after a tough run of fixtures. It is not panic stations just yet, but naturally there are issues that need to be worked through, both tactically and individual performance wise. Chelsea have the capability and experience of rebounding, this is just another opportunity to demonstrate that. Time for the Blues to recapture their good form starting with the Saints!
Come on you Blues!
Twitter: @RJ_Goodthing
