Chelsea is one of the best teams in England and Europe by virtue of winning 6 League titles, 5 League Cups, 8 FA Cups and 1 UEFA Champions League title. They have assembled a bunch of world class players on their roster.
With the arrival of Sarri, there has been a change in the regime and style of play at Chelsea. It is more possession oriented and attacking in nature.
In the Community Shield game against Manchester City, Sarri deployed a 4-3-2-1 formation. The Chelsea defense was left wanting and were not tight on Sergio Aguero. Morata as the sole attacker also didn’t hold the ball long enough for his teammates to run behind City’s defense.
The midfielders were also hesitant in possession and uncoordinated, hence exposed Chelsea’s defense to the onslaught of City’s attackers. This led to a 2-0 defeat at the hands of a confident Manchester City team.
Sarri will have to rectify the mistakes committed by his team and look towards buying more players due to the uncertainty over the futures of star players – Hazard and Courtois.
He will have to find a solution regarding who will play as Chelsea’s main striker, this could prove to be crucial for Chelsea in their bid to mount a serious challenge for the Premier League title this season.
Chelsea under Conte played 3 defenders at the back and hence were quite strong defensively in the last two seasons. They had an additional man back, didn’t give any room to the opposition attackers, and the back 3 were quite cool and composed in possession.
In the Community Shield game against Manchester City, Sarri changed the formation to 4-2-3-1. Due to this sudden change, Chelsea’s central defense consisting of Luiz and Rudiger was sloppy and not tight enough on Aguero, this enabled him score 2 goals.
Marcos Alonso, being used to playing as a left wing-back under the previous regime also didn’t adapt himself quite well to an orthodox left-back position. Victor Moses, who was a regular feature in Chelsea’s starting line-up last season was unfortunately left on the bench in this important game.
Hence, Sarri should consider reverting back to the accustomed Chelsea formation of 3-5-2 which was quite popular and defensively effective in the last two seasons.
Talking about midfielding, Chelsea were frankly pathetic during the Community Shield game. Fabregas, Jorginho, and Barkley were sloppy in possession, didn’t create any chances for their attackers, and were completely outplayed by the Manchester City midfield.
They also were ineffective in breaking the opposition’s counter-attack, Jorginho particularly gave a horrible performance as a centre defensive midfielder. Chelsea deeply missed their key midfielder and best interceptor Kante in the Community Shield game.
With a fabulous World Cup campaign for France, Chelsea will look to Kante for a replication of such a performance in the Premier League.
Jorginho, Fabregas, and Barkley will have to go back to the drawing board and ponder about what went wrong for them in the Community Shield game.
On the other hand, Morata had a very bad game against Manchester City. He couldn’t hold onto the ball and let his teammates run behind City’s defense, was sloppy in possession, comfortably dispossessed by City’s defenders, and couldn’t hit the target when the opportunity presented itself.
Last season injury hampered him and he couldn’t justify his place in the side with his performances.
Chelsea has Olivier Giroud as their second striker, and despite winning the 2018 World Cup with France, he didn’t score a single goal in the entire campaign. Hence, he is not a prolific goalscorer and cannot carry Chelsea to Premier League glory this season.
With the uncertainty over Hazard’s future, Chelsea should buy a new striker in this transfer window. There are rumours that Chelsea has already contacted Bayern Munich over the possible transfer of Robert Lewandowski.
They should also look towards acquiring the services of Karim Benzema who is likely to leave Real Madrid this summer.