What’s the story?
Ex-Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher has given an insight into how to beat Chelsea’s 3-4-3 formation. The Sky Sports pundit recently gave a short analysis on how he felt teams could beat the Blues by exploiting certain weaknesses in their system.
The former Liverpool man was quick to point out how teams constantly change their system before they play Chelsea, but other than Tottenham, none of them have had much success.
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“Now against this Chelsea system, the space is always around the wing-backs. It is either in front of them or behind them. When the wing-backs are high there is space behind the full-backs and teams can try to expose that by playing the long ball down the line and picking up the second ball,” Carragher opined on Monday Night Football.
“When Chelsea go to a back five, the problem is the distance that the two midfield players have to cover. It’s a big problem for Chelsea. That’s where the space is, either side of the central midfield players, and that’s what you need to exploit against Chelsea,” he added.
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Chelsea are currently seven points clear at the top of the Premier League. Although they did lose to Tottenham after their incredible 13 game winning streak, they bounced back with a 4-1 win over Peterborough in the FA Cup and a 3-0 hammering of Leicester City without key striker Diego Costa. It is clear that the 3-4-3 is causing a variety of problems for teams in the Premier League with a host of teams switching their system just before their games against the Blues.
The heart of the matter
Carragher pointed out on Monday Night Football the two key areas that he thought teams could exploit against the London club - the space behind the wing-backs after they overlap and the space for the midfielders to cover when the defence switches to a back five.
Also read: Antonio Conte reveals Chelsea’s new 3-4-3 was his plan D initially
What’s next?
These are perhaps two important chinks in Chelsea’s armour, in an otherwise extremely well-oiled machine. It seems at the moment that it’s the Blues’ title to lose. Apart from playing Liverpool and Arsenal back to back on the 1st and 4th of February, Conte’s men have a relatively easy run of games until April, when they face Manchester City and Manchester United.
Sportskeeda’s Take
Teams could take Carragher’s advice and try to exploit the spaces on the pitch like he said. However, the way teams approach their games against the league leaders raises big question marks about how managers are discarding their tried and tested methods and systems just to match Chelsea man for man on the pitch.
Teams like Leicester and Everton found it incredibly difficult to adjust to the change in tactics and their defenders were out of position on a number of occasions. Tottenham did beat the Blues but they had to be at their very best throughout the game. Teams must find a way to stop Chelsea or else the Londoners could run away with the title this season and perhaps Jamie Carragher’s tips might help in the long run.
