Chelsea's Metamorphosis and Conte's 3-4-3

2015-16 was a special season in the English Premier League as it saw the almost fairy tale like outcome in Leicester City winning the league. However it was also a season to forget for Chelsea, who finished 10^th in the league winning just 12 out of their 38 fixtures. The reigns of reconstruction were handed onto Antonio Conte, in the next season. They won the league post that quite convincingly, winning a whopping 30 out of their 38 fixtures. It’s imperative to see what Conte brought to the table which led to this huge upliftment.

During the 2015-16 season, Chelsea played with an orthodox 4-2-3-1. A formation familiar to English football. Chelsea slumped the entire season with minimal creativity in the center. The only attacking strategy was overloading the wings and putting a cross in. This left huge gaps in the center to be exploited and that’s exactly what happened. Conte, who initially started with a 4-1-4-1, a formation he had never previously tried before, saw the same abysmal result. Everything changed, in September, when they were losing 3-0 to Arsenal, and Conte shifted to his familiar 3-4-3 formation, which ultimately led to Chelsea’s success. Let’s break the 3-4-3 down and see how it really worked.

                             

THE DEFENSE:

• The 3 man defense consisted of David Luiz, Gary Cahill and Cesar Azpilicueta. The major upside of playing a 3 man defense is the presence of a sweeper. The sweeper has a free role, which allows him to track the central attacking midfielder or the false nine of the opposition, and asphyxiate the creation. David Luiz was perfect for the job. More so, he liked going forward with the ball which helped connect the defense to the midfield and even the attack.

• The second noteworthy thing was Azpilicueta’s transformation into a center back from the traditional right back position. The transition was extremely smooth. Which in my opinion is a reflection of the manager’s individual man handling capabilities.

THE MIDFIELD:

• The midfield sported Nemanja Matic and N’Golo Kante in the centre and in the wide areas they had Marcos Alonso and Victor Mosses. Chelsea’s midfield operation was so dynamic and deft that they almost always seemed to dominate the game. Matic was the more creative one of the central duo, whereas Kante gave the dynamic edge, always looming to make interceptions. Here’s an interesting factoid that’s shows Kante’s amazing positional awareness: Up till Christmas he had made 43 interceptions in all which was 19% of the total interceptions made by Chelsea. And what he lacked in creativity was fulfilled by Matic’s presence.

• The interesting part despite the center’s brilliance, however was the operation of Mosses and Alonso, who pushed up ahead often. This denied the opposing full back any space and created an overload in the final third. Effectively this meant there were 5 men in the attack. Which in turn gave space to Pedro and Hazard to cut inside the box. Three players inside the opposition box at any time quite simply meant danger. Another method used by Mosses and Alonso was to cut inside and swap positions with the corresponding inside forward which also led to a numerical overload. This is one of the reasons why Marcos Alonso got on the scoresheet so often.

THE ATTACK:

• With the wide wingers pushing so far forward, the formation seemed to switch to the old 2-3-5. No matter what the situation, Chelsea always seemed to have an extra man in attack. Diego Costa’s versatility was a huge asset. Aside from being the focal point during attacks he also had the ability to drop deep to pick up the ball.

• The second plus point was obviously the Alonso-Matic-Hazard combination. It was uncanny how well they clicked together and weaved the attacks.

• However Chelsea seemed weak whenever they were up against quality wingers. It denied Mosses and Alonso the freedom to push upfront forfeiting their numerical advantage in attack. Whenever a quality attack stemmed from the wings, Chelsea’s defense seemed exposed as seen against Tottenham.

Conte’s Chelsea of 2016-17 has definitely been special and gone down in the history books as one of the best Chelsea sides. He brought about something new to the orthodox English football and most importantly showed us that no one has ever reached somewhere by just playing it safe.