Pep Guardiola earned the first win of his Premier League career against Chelsea as his well-drilled Manchester City managed to break through Chelsea’s defensive resistance with their progressive passing. Antonio Conte’s Chelsea were well-organized defensively as always but he couldn’t add to his two wins against Guardiola last year.
City came into the game with a 4-3-3-formation on paper with Kyle Walker, John Stones, Nicolas Otamendi and Fabian Delph the back four in front of goalkeeper Ederson. Fernandinho was the holding midfielder with Kevin De Bruyne and David Silva in front of him. Raheem Sterling started on the right wing, Leroy Sané on the left and Gabriel Jesus was the central striker. Antonio Conte lined up his Chelsea in a 3-5-2 with Thibaut Courtois in goal, Antonio Rüdiger, Andreas Christensen and Gary Cahill in defense flanked by Cesar Azpilicueta and Marcos Alonso. N’Golo Kante, Tiemoue Bakayoko and Cesc Fabregas started in the central midfield trio with Eden Hazard and Alvaro Morata the forward duo. Chelsea’s starting formation in defense, 5-3-2 can be seen below.
City took control of possession from the start and had some interesting structures when building from the back. Fabian Delph moved into central midfield alongside Fernandinho while Kyle Walker, surprisingly, remained deeper alongside Stones and Otamendi to create a back-three in possession. The setup can be seen in the image below.
This created the numerical superiority Guardiola always seeks at the back with three defenders against Chelsea’s two strikers. As highlighted above, Delph’s movement into the centre allowed Silva and De Bruyne to move higher as City created a numerical superiority in midfield too, with four against Chelsea’s three. Sterling and Sané (marked yellow) kept width and Jesus (yellow centrally) stayed in his original position as the lone striker.
The movement of Silva in particular was quite free, as he moved in and out of the central zone and both half-spaces. De Bruyne responded to Silva’s movements and this led to City having a very fluid setup with their four central players. Most often, as illustrated below, the players created a diamond with their positioning.
And another example here.
One spot in Chelsea’s extremely compact defensive shape that Guardiola had identified as a weakness was the space outside the central midfielders ahead of the Chelsea wing-backs. Conte’s plan was to steer City into the wide areas where Chelsea could then press with the wing-back and the ball-near central midfielder to win possession and counter-attack through the promising combination play of Hazard and Morata. Guardiola however pushed Sterling and Sané so high that Azpilicueta and Alonso were forced to stay deep at almost all times. This left huge space outside Fabregas and Kanté for De Bruyne and Silva to exploit. From there, they could create 2 vs 1’s with the winger against Chelsea’s wing-back. Conte noticed this and reacted by moving Fabregas into the centre of the midfield three and Bakayoko to the left. The energy of Kanté and Bakayoko was deemed as more suited to make these extra 15 metre runs as City made the action zone for the midfielders of Chelsea larger.
As you see above, Fabregas is now in the middle of the three with Bakayoko to the left. Silva has moved wide of the midfield three and received with plenty of space as Sterling pushes Alonso deeper. Chelsea had some difficulties dealing with this, as highlighted below where the midfield three struggle to keep their distances and space appear centrally too. City created some decent chances down the right this way through combinations between De Bruyne and Sterling, but couldn’t find a goal in the first half.
Defensively, City pressed very high as Guardiola sought to stop Conte’s team building from the back. Usually, Jesus started the press against the central centre-back or the goalkeeper, while the ball-near winger pressed the ball-near centre-back of Chelsea. Silva moved high from the midfield and provided pressure against the receiving movement of Fabregas/Bakayoko in the centre. An example is below when Chelsea have just started a play. Jesus stops the pass to Christensen, Sané presses Rüdiger and closes off the wing-back option with a curved run while Silva blocks the passing lane into midfield.
Upon loss of possession, City counter-pressed aggressively to stop Chelsea from building any organized attacks. The below image is an example as they’ve just lost possession but Jesus and Sterling provides pressing from two sides against Rüdiger while Fernandinho and Silva prevents easy out passes for the German defender. Sané comes inside to create pressing-access against Kanté.
When in an deeper defensive shape, City defended in a 4-5-1 where De Bruyne and Silva dropped in alongside Fernandinho as Delph returned to left-back. In the example below, Chelsea’s left centre-back Cahill is on the ball. Sterling starts the press with a curved run to prevent the pass outside him to Alonso. Cahill is forced inside and continues a change of play. It’s quite the contrast to Conte’s goal of forcing City wide but Guardiola seemingly wanted turnovers in central areas to spring counter-attacks through his pacey front three.
This image below is from the same sequence as Sané now curves his run as he presses Rüdiger and prevents the easy pass to Azpilicueta.
Given Chelsea’s problems to deal with the movement of Silva and De Bruyne into the right side in particular, Conte changed his shape into the 5-4-1 he’s preferred since last fall. Willian had replaced the injured Morata in the first half and dropped into the right midfield role with Kanté and Fabregas in the centre and Bakayoko to the left. The new shape can be seen below.
Even the formation change couldn’t stop City dominating, and the movement of Silva and De Bruyne would continued to create problems for Chelsea. In the end, the game was decided by the former Chelsea player De Bruyne. Guardiola’s game plan was justified when Otamendi played a fantastic pass through Chelsea’s midfield line to De Bruyne who turned, combined with Jesus and fired a rocket with his left-foot into the top corner. It was a great goal to decide a great tactical contest, but could have been prevented by Bakayoko simply adjusting his position to stay in line with his teammates and prevent the pass through them. He didn’t, Otamendi’s pass was perfect and the rest was sublime from De Bruyne and Jesus. No prize from guessing where De Bruyne picked the ball up either; the right half-space where City had been successful all game.
As you see in the image above taken a few seconds before the winning goal, Chelsea’s formation change led to Delph playing in a more traditional left-back position as Chelsea now only had two central midfielders, meaning Guardiola withdrew one as he still was 3 vs 2 in the middle. As highlighted, Bakayoko could have prevented the goal with a slight change of position. I’ve highlighted the positions of De Bruyne and Silva to show how City continuously moved players behind the midfield line of Chelsea to create progression in their positional play.
It was a fascinating game tactically between two of the most tactical coaches in football. On this occasion, Guardiola beat Conte who was probably left to rue the injury to Morata which led to Chelsea having next to no attacking play after an okay start. City were well on top for the full ninety minutes though and deservedly returned to Manchester with three points, a statement win and more confidence as they look to claim the Premier League title this term.
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