Chelsea: 3 Reasons Why Jose Mourinho Is In Desperate Need Of A Tactical Plan B

3. Tactical Analysis

At the beginning of the season, Mourinho promised his side would play vibrant attacking football. This never quite materialised, half an hour against Hull City excluded, and the manager looked distinctly unsure how to meld his ingrained need for discipline and organisation with the free-flowing offensive play craved by the fans and, more importantly, club owner Roman Abramovich. When results started going against him, he returned to the tactical model which had succeeded so many times before to restore defensive stability and get results back on track. This began around mid-December, following a 2-1 loss to Sunderland in the Capital One Cup and other unconvincing results against Basel, Stoke and Sunderland again, this time in the league. Mourinho set out his side to control possession and gradually draw teams towards them, opening them up to allow the pace of Willian and Hazard to charge forward on the break, playing one-twos with Eto'o or Torres up front to create space for runs into the box or shots from outside. With Willian moving from box-to-box on the right, Ivanovic moves forward for additional attacking support, while Azpilicueta hangs a little further back on the left to mitigate Hazard's more attack-focus play in cutting inside and linking up with his striker. Oscar hangs a short distance outside the area, ostensibly in the No.10 role, directing the play while ready to cover any counter-attacks. The midfielders behind him are the standard pair of a ball-winner (Matic/Mikel) and box-to-box man (Ramires/Lampard), with slight variations depending on the personnel. In defence, Terry always stays back while Cahill or Luiz offer a slightly more direct method of getting the ball at speed on the counter, with the ball-winning midfielder dropping deeper to cover, similar to how he retreats to form a back three when Ivanovic or Azpilicueta are supporting Willian and Hazard. The turnaround was quick and effective, leading to an unbeaten run lasting all the way to this month's 2-0 loss to Manchester City in the FA Cup. Yet while results have been positive, performances have become increasingly less so, with growing evidence that opponents have worked out Mourinho's gameplan and are starting to plot against it. The league victory away to a seemingly unstoppable Manchester City side is undoubtedly the club's finest result of the year, and Mourinho's defining tactical coup. It could also be surmised as the point at which the team's tactics started to become increasingly transparent, to the extent that City nullified the Blues completely in a 2-0 victory less than two weeks later while fielding a number of second string players.