When Man City Score Easy Goals Against Tough Midfielders
"I'm not going to say I work on them (penalties) because I don't, I just trust my natural abilities."
Most of the vintage top 6 clubs in the Premier League made or at least tried to make a major tweak to their midfield this Summer. Liverpool has had the obvious makeover with their adjustment of McAllister as their new starting deepest midfielder (CDM) still going strong.
Chelsea’s midfield also had a facelift. Enzo Fernandez and Conor Gallagher are hardly veterans at the club and with them came the addition of Moises Caicedo this Summer.
On paper, a midfield pivot of Fernandez and Caicedo should be a perfect fit with Gallagher playing in the modern #10 role as an all-action auxiliary attacker and lead presser. However, as with any renovation project, for this midfield to work certain individuals have to be strict in meeting their minimum job requirements.
I really believe Bernardo Silva has a case for the best footballer in the Premier League. Silva’s not flashy or blessed with an abundance of athleticism, his greatest talent is how comfortable he is with a football at his feet.
If you’re coaching a team who’s ambitions are to attack like Manchester City that team needs a Bernardo Silva or someone similar to be able to drop deep to collect the ball and make smart decisions to initiate your team’s play.
In this case Bernardo Silva, deep in his own half, makes a decision to clear his lines long to Erling Haaland.
Moises Caicedo, the deepest of the Chelsea midfielders legitimately only has one priority in this moment of the game. Caicedo is not responsible for dictating play (that would be Enzo Fernandez) or make late and unmarked overlapping runs (that would be Conor Gallagher).
Caicedo’s simple job is to prevent Haaland from relieving the pressure that his Chelsea teammates have turned on and thus preventing the applied pressure from turning it into a Chelsea counterattack.
Caicedo’s failure here is critical because of the consequences. Ideally, a high-line of pressure from Chelsea here should return a City turnover but instead, Silva’s outlet ball yields a Manchester City 3 v 3 once Caicedo is spun by Haaland.
When Manchester City break they are electric; their pure pace running a counterattack is astonishing to watch, there’s really nothing like it in the sport right now. The genius of City’s offense is how simple the teams’ decision making appears.
City will have place a winger at the top of the opposition box, create an overlapping run, then a square ball goes to Haaland who puts away a basic tap-in goal.
But even though we all see it’s coming, not every team can score this goal. Caicedo was brought in to play in a midfield role meant to defend this goal. If and when Caicedo is firing on all cylinders, Chelsea’s forced long ball clearance from City should turn into Caicedo winning the ball and either reestablishing his team’s possession or returning a quick Chelsea attack.
Chelsea will still be pleased to have scored 4 goals against the Treble Winners and left with 1pt. Pochettino’s team are showing interesting forward patterns of play but at this stage it will be the structural integrity of the defense and midfield that the team needs to build on. Even with all of Cole Palmer’s self-proclaimed natural abilities, a strong foundation in defense and midfield is what will launch Chelsea further up the league table.