How Chelsea play: Building from the goalkeeper, a box-shaped midfield and lots of short corners

New York Times

a day ago

Many outside the club might only admit it grudgingly, but Chelsea's extraordinarily well-funded project under Clearlake Capital and Todd Boehly has finally achieved football legitimacy.
That much was clear in May, when Chelsea secured a return to the Champions League with a fourth-place finish in the Premier League before lifting the UEFA Conference League.
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'For me, the biggest achievement this season is that exactly one year ago, no one was talking about Chelsea for football (reasons), but talking about the big squad, big money,' head coach Enzo Maresca said in a press conference before the FIFA Club World Cup final.
'Now, no one is talking about this, but they are talking about the way we play, and the way we win games. This is personally the biggest achievement of this season.'
The fact that Maresca's young team then comprehensively beat newly-crowned Champions League winners Paris Saint-Germain at MetLife Stadium to win the tournament only served to underline his point. Chelsea are a serious side again, but how exactly do they play?
Let's talk about it.
Maresca's appointment in the summer of 2024 was a clear signal of the football direction the club wanted to take: a shift towards the Pep Guardiola school of possession-focused, positional play, implemented by a man who, like Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta, served as Guardiola's assistant at Manchester City.
Equally as clear was Maresca's specific interpretation of the Guardiola style: a 4-2-3-1 system that shifts to become more of a 3-4-3 in possession, with the 'four' arranged in a box shape consisting of two defensive midfielders — one of which is typically an inverted full-back — and two attacking midfielders operating in the half-spaces, or 'pockets'.
Maresca's box midfield can be seen below, during last season's home meeting with Arsenal…
This structure, which grants a measure of balance by enabling the team to attack with five players while the other five remain behind the ball to protect against counter-attacks, tends to be Chelsea's default alignment. But throughout last season, Maresca demonstrated that he is flexible when it comes to how he gets to it.
Sometimes it was left-back Marc Cucurella inverting into the base of midfield, sometimes it was right-back Malo Gusto moving in from the right. Sometimes one or the other would instead push up into one of the attacking midfield roles, with two natural defensive midfielders behind them.
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Cucurella is also integral to Maresca's preferred tactical plan B: a more attacking alignment in which the inverted full-back pushes all the way up into the final third to enable Chelsea to attack with six players rather than five, keeping just one defensive midfielder to screen the back three.
This tactical shift led to Cucurella scoring several crucial goals for Chelsea last season, including a late winner against Manchester United at Stamford Bridge in May…
Gusto is a more awkward fit inverting into midfield, and Maresca has not returned to it since the Frenchman was targeted by Real Betis in the UEFA Conference League final. He is, however, a real overlapping threat, and was utilised in that manner to great effect against PSG in the Club World Cup final, creating the opening goal with one surge upfield.
Chelsea's campaign in the United States was the stage for Maresca to get significantly more creative tactically.
His experimental 4-2-2-2 shape against Flamengo in the group stage failed, but moving to a 4-3-3 enabled his team to press Fluminense much more effectively in the semi-final and in the final against PSG he started talisman Cole Palmer on the right and Reece James in midfield, enabling his club captain to drop into right-back when Gusto ran forward.
Maresca's team were also highly aggressive out of possession against the European champions, pressing man-to-man. Levi Colwill and Trevoh Chalobah both pushed well into the PSG half to track Ousmane Dembele whenever he drifted deep, with Moises Caicedo filling the gap in the defensive line behind them.
On other occasions, Chelsea are happy to drop off a little into a mid-block and use their attackers to screen opposition passing angles through their lines, trusting their defenders and goalkeeper to sweep up any high balls over the top.
When forced to defend deep, they often try to play offside on the edge of their own penalty area — a strategy practised by Maresca's other coaching mentor, Manuel Pellegrini. This was exploited by several opponents last season, but it also routinely catches attackers offside.
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On the ball, Maresca's preference is for his side to build with short passes from his goalkeeper, often with the aim of baiting opponents into a press that creates space higher up the pitch. Chelsea are very capable of moving the ball forward quickly in such situations, with plenty of speed in their attacking line and an elite transition passer in Palmer to release them.
But against PSG, goalkeeper Robert Sanchez was instructed to kick longer, bypassing PSG's attempted press and often isolating Gusto against Nuno Mendes. It proved to be inspired.
Chelsea's other tactical evolution at the Club World Cup was a shift towards short corners.
Last season, Chelsea's 4.1 goals per 100 set pieces ranked 10th in the Premier League, while their 4.6 goals conceded per 100 set pieces was the sixth-worst in the division. Maresca and set-piece coach Bernardo Cueva do not have the biggest or most aerially talented squad to work with, so passing short at attacking corners makes sense.
The structure is illustrated below, with one player positioned on the byline and another level with the penalty area to form a triangle that entices opponents out to defend.
Chelsea manoeuvred this situation into an own goal from Palmeiras defender Agustin Giay in the Club World Cup quarter-final, and it has the added benefit of limiting the risk of giving up defensive transition.
All in all, Chelsea took 26 of their 43 attacking corners at the tournament short.
This summer's recruitment should make Chelsea even more versatile. Up front, Liam Delap and Joao Pedro both made an immediate positive impact at the Club World Cup and each offers a different aspect of what Nicolas Jackson provided to this team last season, while also providing a more clinical touch in the final third…
On the left flank, Maresca can pick from Jamie Gittens or Pedro Neto, depending on which angles of attack he wants to take. On the right, Brazilian prodigy Estevao can provide an X factor and lessen the creative burden that weighed heavily on Palmer at times last season. Chelsea have far better and more varied tools to pick apart opposition low blocks.
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Behind the front line, the rounded skill set of returning loanee Andrey Santos should make Chelsea's midfield more fluid and flexible. Caicedo and Cucurella, two of Maresca's most-picked players in 2024-25, finally have specialist understudies in the forms of Dario Essugo and Jorrel Hato, the latter of whom can also cover for the injured Colwill at centre-back.
Maresca fielded 27 players at the Club World Cup, more than any other manager in the competition. He has more options than ever, and Chelsea's identity is more sophisticated as a result.
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