This is the game where Leicester goes nuts and plays.
Chelsea
Being pressed from the start and abused for the whole 90 minutes was basically Lampard's problem, he failed to configure himself properly against Leicester and as a result it devolved into
Chelsea
It's a weakness against Leicester's strengths
Leicester for the hosts lined up in 451 with defenders Evans, Fofana, Castagne, Justin, midfielders Ndidi, Tielemans, Albrighton, Maddison, Barnes and striker Vardy
Chelsea
Instead, it's 433, with James back in the back line, T. Silva, Rudiger, and Chilwell at center back, Kovacic, Havertz, and Mount in the midfield, and Abraham, Pulisic, and Odoi in the forward line.
Lampard did take it in his stride, with the recently in-form Abraham and Odoi finally starting, but it was an outburst Foxes City tonight, and as a result, these two had no chance at all!
Fox Cities have always played classical counter-attacking soccer, so their tactics are actually very old, as a matter of fact, this kind of playing style to respond to the current soccer, first of all, regardless of the winners and losers.
Chelsea
You should be able to be on top of the field, but
Chelsea
Now the 433 is not complete, the tacit and technical aspects of the conduction is not enough, it is the same as the conduction of bad kicks, and let go of their rigidity, the
And Leicester's tactics were clear, as was the high pressure pressing, and Rodgers made a few adjustments to his team, in fact adjustments that we've seen a lot of before, nothing too technical or stand-off-ish, to put it in a nutshell
Chelsea
The ability of the Leicester is not weak, so Leicester does not implement high-pressure pressing in front of the field, but in their own half of the pressure on the full range of robbers, and then launch a counterattack, they see the right to now
Chelsea
Without Kante, the midfield is weaker to steal and hold the ball, and then pretend to look for Vardy on counterattacks, but in reality Vardy is just a decoy who doesn't speed up to the end right away, but instead takes a long pass around 25-28 yards, and then releases it to his teammates who follow him into the penalty box for an attack.
In fact it was Albrighton who was the real threat for Leicester, his second point of pressure made for a dangerous ball, and it was this release that Leicester did so beautifully in this game, Vardy was too old to keep pounding away, and it was only with his threatening runs that he went on to get the
Chelsea
The defense had their hands full, and it's actually unlikely that Vardy would have just killed the ball in the box and broken it up, his aim was to put the ball out again, and only then would he have gotten space to enter the box once more.
Chelsea
Actually blocked Vardy, the problem was that they never managed to block Leicester's second point of contact, they lost the whole thing on the run and position, Leicester were somehow super fit and had a strong characteristic of a midfield that was completely positionally indistinguishable
Leicester look as if Ndidi & Tielemans are defending the back, but in reality it's not like that at all, they are all five midfielders defending the back, and even Vardy up front goes back behind the halfway line to disrupt and not allow the
Chelsea
Being able to send passes straight from the center and instead forcing them to the wing, Leicester did this most obviously with Maddison, who clearly hangs the number 10 and whose passes are the main point of attack in the team, but he simply stayed focused on the defense, with the key forward passes being him and Albrighton taking turns, and the passes aimed at Vardy & Barnes on the left.
Whichever attacker got the ball next was in charge of the pickup, pretending to rush from 18 to 25 yards, and then distributing the ball to the man who rushed up, and so the huddle continued to form
Leicester kept the midfield five running to hold the
Chelsea
The point of this is that they are really fit, and Rodgers was adamant in determining that
Chelsea
Without Kante, the running game will be down, so strengthen the center field.
And one of the big reasons this counterattack tactic was so successful was that the
Chelsea
doesn't seem to be doing offsides.
existing
Chelsea
The defense is just inconsistent, but more importantly the tacit understanding of the defense isn't good, and teams nowadays mostly play a ball-control 433 or 4231 when they play each other, and there are actually fewer of those strikers that go straight to the offside line, and probably because of that, the
Chelsea
The thing about creating offsides has gotten weaker, and with T.Silva just coming in and Rudiger being slower, Rodgers seems to have decided that's the case, so thickening up the center and forcing
Chelsea
Trying to attack with both flanks, waiting for the wingbacks to come up and play a counterattack, this time
Chelsea
The weakness for creating offsides comes out, and with Leicester already using the tactic of letting Vardy have the ball halfway up the field on a run and then releasing the follow up, it's not going to be possible to do Vardy offsides without the entire backline pressing very resolutely extremely far forward
Coupled with the comeback of James does not look completely good, and Leicester counter-attack speed is quite fast, the result of his side has been beaten, and then, because Lampard in front of the two wingers put Odoi and Pulisic, their participation in defense is still not high, the situation of the left back Chilwell is better than James, but in the face of the old hosts, he was a bit As soon as Leicester saw Chilwell holding the ball, they would immediately go over to surround him, the purpose is twofold, the first is to prevent him from making threatening forward passes, because Leicester knows very well that he can pass dangerous balls, and the second is to mess with him for a while to make him very tired, so that there is no way to press forward to the attack, but instead, Leicester kind of let go of the right side of the James to let him come up, with the purpose to The purpose is to hit the counterattack behind him
