Enzo Maresca didn’t only make changes to personnel on Saturday to turn our fortunes against Nottingham Forest, he also adjusted the setup and the build up play.
A tactical analyst I rate, Connor Holden, has put out his reactions to the game and looked at the build up and changes made by Maresca.
Connor wrote:
‘Chelsea set up expecting Forest to be in a 5-4-1 shape off the ball, something that has stifled us lately against back five sides… this saw Maresca start with a 2-2-5-1 shape on the ball, looking to start on the front foot
‘However the M2M press from Forest, triggered by Chalobah getting the ball in LCB zones forces Chelsea long, losing their +1 advantage and allowing Forest to regain possession/stifle Chelsea
‘Second half, Cucurella and James were clearly instructed to have a deeper starting position in more of a 2-3 base (or dropping into the first line to create a +1), looking to increase the distances for the Forest players IF they decided to jump man for man ~ thus making it harder for them to do so effectively.’
You can watch his video discussing Maresca’s tactics in full below…
I think Maresca has shown his tactical capabilities a number of times now to turn games. He’s also shown a lot more flexibility lately.
Let’s see how the season progresses. There are obviously still flaws and we all know how easily we could have been speaking about a defeat to Forest on the weekend too. But these changes were crucial to Chelsea getting the win.
