Manchester United had lost their unbeaten run, Arsenal proved they were as brittle as ever, and Carlo Ancelotti had been reinforced with the quality of offensive and defensive reinforcements he’d been pleading for. Chelsea were in prime position to make a statement. A bold title statement. They did anything but.
Instead of raising questions about their competitors sustainability, it is now the ailing champions who will be forced to field inquisitions about where they go from here.
The party line will of course be that the title can still be retained. Internally, those desires may now be re-harnessed towards the Champions League and indeed Champions League qualification alone.
If, prior to Kenny Dalglish’s recent revival, this has been an annus horribilis for Liverpool, it shows how bad things have slid for Chelsea after the Anfield side deservedly completed a league double over the Londoners, without having their goal breached.
It wasn’t as if Chelsea could play the injury card as an excuse for their travails. Ancelotti arguably picked his strongest X1 possible, a feat which arguably conspired to be their downfall against an organised and energetic Liverpool team.
Once Ancelotti got his new frontman, the conundrum was always going to be where to fit him in.
The Italian chose to shoehorn Fernando Torres, Nicolas Anelka and Didier Drogba into his starting line-up, deciding to incorporate the trio into the dreaded diamond formation which the Blues abandoned part-way through last season as their domestic and European desires threatened to disappear.
Many of the reasons Chelsea co-jointly dispatched that system then were back in evidence at Stamford Bridge yesterday. The narrow triumvirate up-front were supplemented by a midfield with no natural width, so creating a virtually impassable midfield congestion zone they didn’t have the skill or intuition to play through.
Through their own accord, Chelsea created nothing and never looked likely to. Stifled by their own system, time ticked by harmlessly as last seasons fluid and free scoring conquerors looked devoid of how to even fashion a chance.
Ancelotti has been criticised for his ‘if it doesn’t work, don’t fix it’ methods at times, and his decision to replace a centre back for a right back and the inevitable Salomon Kalou swap for Torres only succeeded to make the hosts look even more clueless and desperate as they panicked with indecision between hurrying a non-existant through-ball and slinging in optimistic crosses.
For all of Liverpool’s endeavours, Chelsea were dire. They started slowly, grew increasingly poor and went downhill from there. It was difficult to really analyse Torres’s debut contribution too much. The bottom line was that he didn’t cover himself in glory, but the way Chelsea played from front to back gave him slim to none service or space to work in.
Ever since Jose Mourinho implemented the 433 formation, Chelsea have cocooned themselves within that comfort zone, and have found only niggles when switching modus operandi.
The recruitment of Torres may now mean either a significant shift in formation or personnel is needed to get the best out of the Spaniard and the team.
Privy to Ancelotti’s outcome will be what to do with Torres and Drogba. The pair were restricted in their understanding yesterday, again hindered by the cumbersome nature of Chelsea’s overall play, but how Ancelotti decides to send his team out will largely depend on whether he thinks the duo are compatible.
The tried and tested 433 will mean one of them will have to miss out with two from Malouda, Kalou and Anelka supporting the main man and providing the much needed craft out wide.
A 442 is possible with the duo paired together, but for all of Chelsea’s multi-million pound resources, most of their main assets are central players. Only Florent malouda is a natural wide midfielder, meaning either Kalou or Anelka would have to be deployed as a quasi right-winger to have any balance. A four man midfield would also leave Ancelotti a surplus of central midfielders with Lampard and Essien likely to oust John Obi Mikel, Ramires and the potentially brilliant Josh McEachran.
In the interim, Ancelotti may persevere with the diamond which he favoured at Milan, but the limitations of that system are there for all to see.
It didn’t take the opposition long to rumble it last time, and any visitors to Stamford Bridge will be acutely aware that frustration will not be far away by funnelling the Blues through the middle of the park whilst allowing the full backs to have possession in innocuous areas.
When you worry about your own set-up more than your opponents do, then there are issues, and at present, could Ancelotti and his players universally agree on a best plan of action?
If the maximum is to be salvaged from a season in which Chelsea now appear to have relinquished their Premier League crown, then Carlo Ancelotti has some hard and defining decisions to make, and soon.
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