Tactical analysis of Chelsea v/s Liverpool
[T H R E A D]

Chelsea were playing a 433 formation with Havertz as forward and mount and Werner in the wings. It was pretty clear that the responsibility on Mount and werner was huge as the midfield was Kovacic-Jorginho-Kante.

Lampard wanted Havertz to drop and drag the CBs to make sure Mount and Werner make runs and exploit the open space. He had made his mind to play Havertz up top in a big game and no one was better than mount at the wings to the job that was expected.

Mount is a better player to make runs and finish as he has been playing throughout the last season. He was an excellent number 8 and this role suited him a lot.
It makes sense cus Trent & Robertson play very high and there will be a humongous amount of space to exploit.

It was clear that Lampard did try to use a similar tactic that Biesla used against Liverpool.
Werner could possibly do a much better job than Harrison and score a goal catching trent off-guard.

Havertz was dropping quite frequently and also tried to make some runs as Liverpool held high defensive line.

For this plan, having Jorginho is very vital in the pitch. His passing range would play a crucial role to this plan as well as he was in a very good form after playing for Italy.

But obviously everything didn’t go as planned.

From the start itself, Liverpool were massively pressing high and were trying to force some errors and Chelsea were seemingly to invite them in their own half easily.

CBs would diverge and fullbacks would also move sideways, inviting Trent/Robertson to press. Kovacic would drop deep and would drag Keita and dribble past him to find Werner.

Its clear from this that Liverpool were trying pressing higher up and Kepa finds Reece through a lob ball.

This situation was possibly the best outcome of this tactic. Salah cuts inside whilst Trent makes an overlapping run. Kovacic defends well and Havertz drops deep and eventually find werner.

The CBs of Liverpool created a massive problem for us as their defensive awareness of spectacular that they tried to press Havertz at the same time, they tracked back. Watch closely in the above play How Van Djik tracks back before Werner took the shot.

The fact that Liverpool CBs are ridiculously good, Havertz was utterly non-existent. He couldn't have done anything that could've helped us.
Eventually, he started tracking back and helping the defense.
This vid shows how started pressing Salah in 33rd min.

Kante had a poor game but he was the only reliable person on the bench to play that position. RLC wasn't playing well and Barkley is Barkley. His sole purpose on the pitch was to stop the Liverpool transitions and do abit of linkup play.
But he couldn't do a good job.

Here,Kepa is trying to gobble a ball that is literally moving opposite to him till the edge of the box. You move out off your line when the BALL IS COMING TOWARDS YOU(IN THAT SPEED),NOT AWAY.
Thats basic goalkeeping.
Sickens me that mostly Lampard gets the blame becos of this

Watch how Zouma and Jorginho are so reluctant to react when there is a big chance for a goal to be scored.
Mane and firmino were also clear. Could ve been a goal and this is happening in the 13th MIN.
Well, this wasn't Lampard's tactics but it was worth to prove that it wasn't.

Liverpool are very good at pressing which created us some serious problems. Klopp knows that our defense and GK aren't the best which forced them to press even higher.

This was my greatest fear of playing Jorginho. Playing Jorginho also means that we need to hold a high line sometimes between the game. The one time we slightly get our defense up, we easily let Mane pass through and then, christensen makes a dumb mistake.

After this red card, the game was indeed over. Subbing off Havertz was the right decision. Mount and Werner started to track back and reece & Alonso started playing very compact. Which let Mane to exploit more space.

As mount and Werner aren't traditional wingers like Willian, they weren't able to trackback at the right and it greatly affected us. Even after playing compactly, Liverpool showed their class through easy one-two passes and scored a goal.

Mount tried to shoot from a long-range and was a decent effort. This was certainly what Lampard expected a lot from him in this match if there hadn’t been a red card in the first half.

After the 2 goals, Lampard subbed in Tammy who also uses the same tactic that Lampard planned for this game but couldn’t score. If Werner had been in his place, it would ve been a different story.
Lampard's plan for this match was note-worthy but The red card affected us hugely.

My opinion-
It took some time for me to realize all this and I'm so proud to say that Lampard is the manager of my club. But playing 3 players(Kante, Havertz, and Mount) out of position when they are trying to settle down is a very big ask.

But at the same time, this was the best time to experiment. First-team players are injured and its just 2nd pl game also a huge opponent.

"Those who don't wander are lost"- J.R.R. Tolkien

I pity those kids who scream Lampard out. He's gon stay a very long time imo. Buckle up.

@ConnCFC @FutbolCheIsea @tovers98
Thoughts?