Johyan

Chelsea &amp; Everton clashed in a 0-0 draw in what was one of Maresca’s toughest challenges as a Chelsea manager so far, was that down to the genius of Dyche? Could Maresca have changed some things? A player issue or something else?

THREAD⬇️: 

But to better understand Everton’s defensive game plan, I think it’s important to have a quick recap of how Spurs tried to press us &amp; how we exploited their defence

Tottenham tried to press high in a 4-3-3 with Bissouma man marking Palmer, wingers high &amp; wide to press wide CB’s 

They had success at times but they faced a few problems:

The first problem was Sanchez would act as an extra centre back for a +1, when Solanke pressed him he’d leave a centre back free, a bounce pass could find the spare man 

Then Enzo would drop extremely deep which gave their right centre back a problem, originally he’d only have to step out a few yards to press Enzo (in the left half space)

But now he’d have to push extremely high up which he wasn’t comfortable with, letting Enzo play forwards 

And the reason their centre backs weren’t comfortable in doing this was because if they did push up extremely high, Chelsea could go long as there’d be a 3v3 at the back with lots of space between the fullback &amp; centre back

Further up the field we had a 5v4 against their defence 

So Everton needed to:

Prevent bounce passes from Sanchez as the spare man 

Not let our left 10 drop deep into space

Have bodies back against long balls 

Prevent 5v4 overloads against their backline 

And Dyche managed to do most of these, let’s look at how

To prevent bounce passes from Sanchez, Everton simply never pressed high when he had the ball, ofc that gave us more possession higher up but they didn’t mind that

What was interesting however was the roles of their wingers, deeper &amp; narrower, compare Everton’s to Tottenham’s 

What this prevented was our “10’s” dropping deep centrally as if they did, there’d be a winger in that zone, therefore the centre backs could stay deeper 

This also meant if Chelsea did try to go long, they’d only have a 3v4 compared to a 3v3, numerical advantage for Everton 

Here’s an example of it, Enzo drops into the backline (more on that later) &amp; Gusto drops deep to try &amp; receive, but Harrison (Everton right winger) is in that zone blocking him

When Chelsea tried to go wide to the wingers, their fullbacks would step up so they don’t run at them 

If Chelsea did manage to bypass this Everton mid block, then Harrison would drop into the backline to form a 5-4-1 to have a 5v5 at the back rather than being 4v5 down

This nullified Chelsea’s overload threat &amp; was effective but it came with 2 downsides 

The first was if Everton did win the ball, Calvert-Lewin would be extremely isolated

So unless the Everton players could carry the ball over a long distance then they’d be no support on the counter which would often lead to a quick turnover 

The 2nd issue was they didn’t always get the timings of when to move from a 4-1-4-1 to a 5-4-1 right

Here Doucoure stays as a lone 6 rather than stepping up so Gueye can’t move across, that leaves Colwill in acres of space, Mangala presses him but Enzo is free, leads to a corner 

So before I go onto what I personally think Maresca could’ve changed let’s have a look at how he tried to bypass Everton’s shape 

Enzo or Caicedo would often drop into the backline which either gave them space to pick out long balls or for our wider centre backs to carry 

I don’t think we utilised wide carries enough (although tbf we didn’t have the best profiles for it) but we did have lots of time &amp; space to pick out long balls 

Caicedo drops into the backline to get space away from Everton’s midfielders &amp; switches it to Sancho 

Tosin &amp; Enzo in particular had great success with these switches of play, Colwill had a slight off day with it, Disasi didn’t attempt as much &amp; even the successful ones were a bit too slow

Disasi not offering much carrying threat or progressive passing is an issue… 

In the 2nd half Dyche also tweaked the role of Calvert-Lewin so he was more on our left side rather than central to try &amp; apply pressure to Enzo when he dropped deep or to a potential Colwill carry

But it did leave a lot of space for Tosin to pick out passes 

When Chelsea did progress upfield they tried to lure the Everton defence to one side so they could switch it to the spare man on the other side 

Switch here to Neto in space who gets a cross in, but we lack a player who can dominate the box &amp; get on the end of these crosses… 

We had some success with the long switches of play to get us upfield but we barely threatened Everton once they got into their 5-4-1 shape, so what do I think Maresca could’ve changed?

I think he should’ve asked one of the deeper players to move higher up to form a diamond shape once we pinned Everton back by either moving Enzo to the right of the double pivot OR moving Gusto to right back 

Let me explain why

If Enzo had pushed up on the left side Gusto would’ve become the central 10, that’s not ideal as he’s not great in these tight spaces, but Palmer is

He could still start in a 3-2-5, but have Gusto or Enzo deeper right &amp; push them up as Everton retreated into a 5-4-1 for a 6v5 

I only saw one time where this happened &amp; it lead to a free kick in a dangerous position 

Enzo pushes up higher on the right so Palmer can move centrally, great first &amp; second touch wins him a free kick on the edge of the box (Neto could’ve also made a run for a pass) 

I also think he could’ve moved Neto to the left after subbing Noni on who would’ve been more likely to take Young on rather than Sancho

Sancho also struggled due to a lack of combination play which Gusto wasn’t providing, our results aren’t great when Gusto’s in the half spaces

A rotation we could’ve possibly used more was:

Enzo drop into the backline to form a back 4

Colwill tries to advance forward

Gusto &amp; Sancho interchange so Harrison doesn’t know who to cover &amp; Young wouldn’t be sure when to step up

If Colwill loses it you’ve still got 3 back 

Everton mainly tried to rely on long balls to Calvert-Lewin, the combined physicality of Disasi, Tosin &amp; Colwill did nullify most of the threat but it’s too difficult to stop him completely 

Disasi messes up the header (should leave it for Tosin), leads to Everton’s best chance 

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