Parking the bus: An effective strategy against Chelsea?

Chelsea: Do they possess enough guile?

Chelsea’s performance on Monday night against Manchester City was both sublime and surprising. It was sublime because of the way they took on the seemingly impervious City and surprising because everyone had predicted that they would go to the Etihad and park the bus.

After that result Jose Mourinho played down his side’s title chances in typical fashion and unsurprisingly everyone has completely ignored him. The thing is, perhaps Mourinho is actually right and maybe his team are best bets for next season rather than this.

The reason for saying this is despite their performance against City and indeed against all their title rivals Chelsea might well come unstuck against the smaller teams. The perfect example of this was last Wednesday’s 0-0 draw at home to West Ham. Sam Allardyce’s side came to Stamford Bridge and set up shop, playing for the draw. West Ham’s team Heat Map demonstrates how deep within their own half they played but they did make a monumental 56 clearances.

Chelsea meanwhile had 39 attempts at goal but still couldn’t find a way through. Just nine of those attempt were actually on target although fourteen were blocked. Under half of these attempts were from inside the box and as Michael Cox showed, City’s secret to success has been the number of shots they take inside the box. Chelsea don’t do that enough and again on Monday under half of their shots on City’s goal were taken from inside the box.

Eden Hazard, Willian and Oscar all offer a work rate and pace on the break but do they necessarily have the subtlety required to break down a defence that parks itself like West Ham did?

This is where the question of Juan Mata comes into consideration. However in his two games for his new club Mata has only played six successful passes into the box. Chelsea play at such pace under Mourinho at the moment that there is an argument that Mata could just get left behind in it. He could well have helped against West Ham but there are no guarantees.

The other problem Chelsea have is they lack a clinical striker in the same way that Manchester City do. Their top scorer is Eden Hazard with nine league goals, Manchester City have three players with that total or more. Against Manchester City Samuel Eto’o only took two shots (one in the box) whilst in his last 90 minute performance against Hull City Fernando Torres managed just three shots (all in the box).

By contrast in Sergio Aguero’s last outing for City, a 45 minute appearance against Spurs, the Argentine managed five shots (all inside the box). On Monday night Edin Dzeko managed five shots, again all within the box and his last 90 minute performance against Newcastle Alvaro Negredo managed a remarkable eight shots with just one from outside the box.

Jose Mourinho has already hinted that there will be a striking arrival in the summer and it looks like the new man will be part of a trio along with Romelu Lukaku and one of the present incumbents.

For this season Mourinho looks like he’ll be picking between Torres and Eto’o and unless one of them can get into a purple patch the title may just be a step too far for this squad this season. There might be too many frustrating draws against smaller teams.