Ten steps: how Sunderland beat Chelsea
For the second weekend in a row, a north-east side went to London and picked up a shock win.
Note – this article originally featured photos from the match, which have had to be removed for copyright reasons.
Playing that way was the key, according to Nedum Onuoha, scorer of the superb first goal. ”Some of our best results have come when we’ve tried to play more football. We definitely tried to do that and we saw it pays to do that.”
Steve Bruce was similarly positive. “Today, we had that cutting edge. (Asamoah) Gyan and (Danny) Welbeck led the line fantastically well.”
“All week, we thought that everybody who comes here just plays one striker. They’re so used to playing against it, and they’re so patient, that eventually they’ll break you down. So we thought, why not have a go?”
“We’ve got the youngest Premier League squad – with that comes energy.”
Two strikers
Attacking through middle
Pressing
Defending in numbers
Attacking in numbers
Responsbility
Man-marking Cole
Man-marking Cole (2)
Zenden tucks in
Tackle success
Sunderland won the majority of tackles – 45 out of 74.
Ten steps: how Sunderland beat Chelsea
Great analysis. Just a comment about your point about Zenden tucking in – as you point out, this left Bosingwa unmarked on the right flank. With Bosingwa’s good attacking attributes and Ashley Cole being so well marked by Richardson, wouldn’t you have thought that Chelsea would try and focus more passing down that right hand side?
Great point. Not sure if it was a recent return from injury and Bosingwa wasn’t up to his best or not.
Bardsley was strong though, he didn’t get too far forward, but did push up to exert some pressure. Cattermole also had a tendency to drift over that way as well.
Surprised no one has mentioned Malouda. He was anonymous and the Chelsea fans booed when he was taken off – thought Ancelotti was brave to do so in favour of pace & fresh trickery of Kalou.
I’ve seen SAFC vs Spurs and CFC in the last week, and credit must go to their defence, though Turner was lucky to still be on the pitch in all fairness. While on a yellow card he committed several fouls, including grabbing Ivanovic round the neck that could have seen him given a second.
Mmmm i think they booed the change not the player, no? That was my feeling.
Thought so too, I didn’t think it made sense to drop Malouda either – hes our most creative player
Yea, thats what Mike said. Chelsea fans booed when Malouda was taken off, so Ancelotti was brave to subbed him.
Does a lost tackle mean when the Sunderland player was tackled by a Chelsea player or is it when a Sunderland player goes in for the tackle but loses out?
“Sunderland | Tackles | All | 0-90 mins.”
means the tackles were performed by Sunderland players only.
Cattermole is a very good player for Sunderland, shame he can’t avoid the recard sometimes
Great anaylsis as usual. I think there depth problem you hinted at early in the year was shown today. The fact they had to start to natural full backs at the two Centreback spots shows a major problem(there only other option was 19 year old Bruma)If Mancienne wasn’t at Wolves I think he would have gotten the start.
Ivanovic is ostensibly a CB/RB (or RB/CB) but was more so a master of ball-watching on Sunday, and I’m still trying to figure out where Ferreira was on the second goal. Should also be mentioned that Sunderland’s two strikers are quite dynamic. So though having two strikers up top is a bit of a luxury for most teams v. Chelsea, when Gyan and Welbeck do get the ball, they can together run at the (makeshift) defense and cause some havoc with their pace.
..i would dare contend that they DID indeed cause havoc with their runs..!
Chelsea were just bad yesterday. The midfield couldn’t do anything and the attackers were all very subdued.
fine punditry this
It could have been worse if it wasn’t for Cech, and Ivanovic should have been sent off. Ferreira never seemed comfortable as a centre-back and in retrospect, Bruma should have played instead as he is a natural centre-back, a lot quicker and stronger, albeit less experienced. I was disappointed not to see anyone make a strong/diving tackle on Onuoha after he dribbed straight through the middle into the box. Were they (Mikel, Ferreira, Ivanovic) waiting for Terry to come off the bench to do it? Missing 4 key players is not an excuse for losing like this.
Its the bravery in attack (committing people foward) and responsibility in defense (covering for your teamates, not just doing your own job) that really impresses though. The quality in attack sprang after this springs from the fact that there are always options available and confidence grows.
Contrast and compare with the cowardly negative garbage served up by Hodgson’s Liverpool, especially away from home. Is the Premier League even more competitive again than last year (even though Chelsea and United will almost certainly be 1-2 in some order)? Or is it just an illusion based on some high profile shock results?
Seems like a lot more teams have lost the negative 4-5-1 mentality of thinking they could defend against big four teams when in reality they were usually conceding the game by not even trying to win. Blackpool, West Brom, now Sunderland and Newcastle to add to Spurs and others.
Perfect performance by the Sunderland. Outstanding. And also, Terry, Alex, Essien and Lampard were missing and that proved to be too much handicap for Chelsea. In attacking areas, Chelsea didn’t have any solution, no width no narrowness and no patience with the ball.
I agree that Sunderland were amazing. But shouldn’t Chelsea have had suitable replacements for all of the injured players?
In my opinion Chelsa don’t have enough depth in the squad.
they’ve had problems with centre back depth ever since Gallas left. even when they had Boulahrouz and Ben Haim, you still had games where they’d play Ferreira and even Essien at centre back. I think both Mourinho and Ancelotti prefer to use experienced players out of position rather than draft in an unproven young player – it’s worked for them before, to be fair.
I think also, they got complacent because Alex and Terry both have pretty good injury records. I can’t remember Alex ever getting a serious injury, while Terry only had that broken metatarsal from a bad tackle by Eboue. I’m sure they weren’t expecting to have to play 4-5 games with both of them out, which is entirely possible.
Especially as Terry’s aggressive game seems to finally be catching up with his body. He seems likely to get more injuries over time unless he starts playing a bit more conservatively. I’d say the same for Essien, although he’s taken far less time to break down.
Quite right though, their squard seems a bit thin. Of course, that’s seemingly true of practically all teams save possibly Madrid. If you take 3 out of the top 5 players of any team out of the lineup, they should struggle to match their previous performances.
I don’t think any team in the premiership would perform much better if you took out their starting center-backs and 2 of their best midfielders.
I think the fact is that teams cannot possibly afford to keep double squads of players at the ready (unless you are playing football manager). Players don’t want to sit on the bench during rotation unless they make tons of money. Only Madrid and Man City can seem to afford to put together a truly deep squad.
Even so, without Tevez, Man City is toothless, and if Madrid lost Ozil, Xabi, Carvalho and Pepe (even keeping Ronaldo/Casillas, as Chelsea has Drogba/Cech), they would be much more vulnerable. They’d probably still put goals in, but they’d be giving up more too.
Again like last year it seems as if no one wants to win the league. when ever there is achance to get a real daylight for chelsea they let the oppertunity go just as they were doing last year.
it may saound a bit odd but i think the league will be won by the team thats slightly less inconsistant rather than the team which is very consistant hahahahah
“it seems as if no one wants to win the league”
This phrase is complete idiocy. They all want to win the league, clearly. It’s just harder than it seems to people sitting in armchairs.
I would like to know whether the positional sense or the lack of it from the chelsea CBs was also a reason for the loss. I thought ivanovic and ferreira din cover for each other
When I heard Sunderland were playing 4-4-2 I was optimistic for Chelsea’s chances, since ZM has often highlighted how the side playing 4-3-3 should be able to dominate through the superior numbers in midfield.
A Sunderland player who I heard being interviewded after the game said that they concentrated on shutting down the full backs. This should have ensured Chelsea dominated with 3 against 2 in the middle. I only heard the game on the radio so I haven’t seen it. What went wrong in midfield? Was it that Mikel, Ramires and Zhirkov played poorly, or are they simply the wrong players? Without Lampard, Essien and Benayoun, Chelsea are short of creative midfield players; Mikel plays as the defensive midfielder, Zhirkov operates almost as a third wide-left player, and Ramires seems better as a stopper than creator.
Probably because the 3 v 2 gives the creator more freedom to drift between the lines, or take time picking the important through balls (like Ozil does so well for Germany).
With no Lampard or Essien (not the ideal replacement, but certainly the sort of player with the energy to move around in that position and stretch Sunderland’s formation) that advantage is somewhat compromised.
Malouda is obviously a creative option, but (like Zhirkov) he always drifts to the left. Maybe, for this one game at least, Chelsea would be feeling the absence of Ballack and Joe Cole?
They are very clearly feeling the departure of Ballack and Deco. They only have 1 real creator in the team (Lampard) now.
I was about to point out something similar. Two strikers high up the pitch + defending in numbers = plenty of space for a DMC/MC, right? That does not speak well of Mikel/Ramires’ creative abilities.
brilliant analysis. yet another fail to score for Chelsea. they now have 4, on a par with teams like blackpool & west ham. the pressing of sunderland seemed to rattle the chelsea midfield with mikel, ramires & zhirkov achieving just 80% pass completion at best. mikel is normally 90%+. Cech really underlined his previous form & v good “saves ratio” with a great display in a testing/exposed situation – he returned positive pt’s in yahoo fantasy football (which i think has a very fair scoring system), making 6 saves. Reina returned negative pt’s for the 6th time in 13 games making just 2 saves from 4 shots faced at Stoke.
Is anybody else fed up with this midfield trio of Mikel-Ramires-Zhirkov? It’s no surprise that 2 of our last 3 defeats have seen us start with them and then fail to create anything of significance. I knew when Ancelotti selected that squad that we would struggle.
I know we’ve lost Lampard, Essien and Benayoun but I feel that this trio simply stifle our attacks. The lack of movement by Zhirkov in the middle almost always means that Ashley Cole has to a) try a tricky pass to Malouda who is always being pressed or b) pass back to Mikel/Ivanovic. Zhirkov is a great talent and has quick feet but he’s simply not a CM. Make him a LW and push Malouda back to CM (bold move I know but he’s clearly much more creative and did the job against Liverpool last season)
Mikel I can’t fault. He’s really developed into a good player but he just doesn’t seem comfortable in that trio. Lampard and Essien always find space for him whereas Zhirkov and Ramires simply stand around.
Finally, Ramires. I really do think he’s been a poor buy. In all (8 or so?) matches I’ve seen him play he’s really not done anything worthwhile. I know he was crucial in the build up to the Arsenal goal but everyone seemed to ignore the fact that he lunged in for a lot of challenges and missed them, leaving his position while he tried to get back up. 10 attempted tackles and only 4 were successful. I also think his decision making is poor. In the build up to the Liverpool goal he completely ran across Cole, cutting his passing angle off and then being too far up the pitch to track back and defend.
He’s young, new to the league and still learning English so I don’t want to throw the book at him just yet. But I would like to see Mceachran given more of a run seeing as he’s more composed, great passer and seems very confident for a young lad.
remember how long it took Malouda to find his feet, Ramires is a fine young player but really you need to give him a year in the EPL first before deciding that he was a waste of the clubs money or not…!
I feel that Ancelotti made a mistake in fielding Ferreira as a Centre Back. I have never seen play in that position before. I was greatly surprised with his selection in that position. Ancelotti should have selected Bruma instead. Even though he is not experienced, he is a natural Centre Back and experience counts for little in my book. Look at Mancini when Manchester City played against Chelsea earlier in the season. When he had few defenders to select, he selected Boyata who I am sure is also as young as Bruma. To make matters worse, Manchester City was facing Drogba, one of the most dangerous strikers in the world, so you would think of coming up with a makeshift centre back however Mancini had faith in what he available to him. Mancini has been criticised lately for his cautious approach however this shows that he has some qualities which we should not ignore.
Ferreira has played CB before, at Anfield during the 2006-07 season if I recall, which Chelsea surprisingly (not) lost 0-2. I agree that Bruma should have started instead, but IMO experience counts for A LOT.
Boyata also started at RB against Chelsea, so he was against Malouda instead. Doesn’t make the task any less daunting of course, and I take nothing away from him, but he did had a lot of protection from Barry and De Jong.
It’s hard to compare both games, because Man City was playing probably the better team, so they sat deep and looked to hit on the counter, while this was a match Chelsea expected to win.
Malouda has to be played on the left side of a midfield three with the current injury crisis,he often found space when played there last season. Zhirkov will be more comfortable the closer he is to the left touchline.Hindsight is a wonderful thing but surely Bruma with his pace and athleticism would have been a better bet than Ferreira up against Gyan and Wellbeck. Ferreira kept instinctively drifting towards the right back area. John Terry has his critics but his organisational skills were badly missed. Please be patient with Ramires,
every foreign player should be given one season to adjust and settle in to the Premier League.
agree about Zhirkov/Malouda switch. Without belittling Sunderland’s great performance, this result is more the consequence of Chelsea’s injury crisis. Having said that, in normal circumstances Sunderland could’ve won anyway playing like that, with lesser margin perhaps. Also, I now doubt Ancelotti’s confidence in risk taking and making changes midway through second half
Chelsea’s injury “crisis” is no worse than what United/Arsenal/Liverpool go through pretty much every single season. The difference is Chelsea have a paper-thin squad this season, that’s all.
Must be pretty depressing being Bruma right now. He can’t even get a game over a very predictably hapless Ferreira? Can’t help but wonder why Chelsea’s supposedly great kids can’t ever get a game.
Still can’t comprehend the point of Chelsea buying Zhirkov. Good player, but doesn’t fit in their system at all.
Abramovich probably had some say in that. but also, Zhirkov was an amazing player in Russia – he was considered better than Arshavin when both of them were playing there.
and yeah, you have a good point. Arsenal have been missing their first choice centre back for 2 months and their second choice centre back for 4 games due to suspension / injury – but hey, we actually have 4 quality centre backs, and our 5th / 6th guys (Song + Sagna) are still probably better than Ivanovic + Ferreira, overall.
What a load of tosh.
United relied heavily on Rooney last season and when he injured himself you struggled to break down teams.
Chelsea are currently without Lampard, Essien and their two centre backs. The player (Benayoun) who should have offered Lampard a rest is out for 7 months. Arsenal and United fans complain about injuries to the likes of Fabio, Evans, Carrick, Gibbs, Diaby and Bendtner. These are players that have no significant impact on your games yet you seem to think that they’re a massive loss. Yet when they play you heckle them.
Watched the replay of the match on Fox last night. Great match for Sunderland. They played very offensively with lots more ball possession than I would have guessed. Passing and movement was very effective for Sunderland. Chelsea were incapable of adjusting for some reason and the result was entirely justified. No fluke this game. The Blues were simply outplayed. Sunderland came to Stamford Bridge to play football and won it in the process. This type of performance along with the likes of Seasiders and Newcastle are very promising for the EPL. It’s attractive and exciting to watch for the technique and passing alone, never mind ’stick it in’.
Chelsea are struggling without depth in their side. Drogba – down with malaria, Malouda – playing with that ankle injury and Anelka – never comfortable in the 4-3-3 as compared to the 4-4-2 playing just off Drogba. Without Essien and Malouda in midfield it was very light weight to start with (Ramires-Mikel-Zhirkov). One important point is that the three midfielders had no plan B – no direct threat to goal which Lampard provides. And even if Lampard was fully fit he would struggle after some time since there are no replacements for Deco, Ballack who used to take the pressure off him now and then.Now with their best CB pairing of Terry-Alex for a couple of months at least, Chelsea really are facing a crisis of sorts…
The bench doesnt look inspiring at all.. Just read fr urself….Van Aanholt, Bruma, McEachran, Kalou, Sala and Kakuta (not at all premiership material). To compare this was Arsenal’s bench at Everton… Walcott, Rosicky, Van Persie, Eboue, Denilson and Gibbs (Now that is some bench strength).
Chelsea’s youth system seems to be much inferior when compared to other top teams like Arsenal or Barcelona. Lets see what coach Carlo does to improve things.
Cheers.
“Sunderland’s most obvious tactic was to play two strikers, Asamoah Gyan and Danny Welbeck (orange). They had license to stay upfront, and had no responsibility to get behind the ball when out of possession”
the trouble is: if sunderland had played with one striker and one, then that would have been listed as a reason for winning the game. does this analysis have any predictive or explanatory power?
Yes, it does. Granted, a Chelsea side that holds a bare resemblance to their favoured line-up was a substantial reason but how many teams, if any, decide to play with two forwards with little defensive responsibility and encourage those forwards to be creative and progressive in their movement?
Sunderland did it and won the game. Of course they may still have won the game if they had played Zenden behind Gyan and thrown Riveros in to anchor the midfield but that isn’t the point. They tried something no other ‘weaker’ teams have tried this season and won the game so there’s a correlation there worthy of noting.
I don’t think it would have been listed as a reason for success if Bruce had lined up 4-1-4-1 and instructed Gyan to stick to a tight gameplan because most teams who go to The Bridge and get smashed 5-0 do exactly that.
As somewhat knowledgeable amateurs, the best we can do is accurately identify the reasons for success and failure in hindsight. If anyone here had the tactical knowledge to suggest beforehand that playing with two imaginative, roaming strikers would contribute to a Sunderland victory, they’d probably be coaching Premiership clubs.
For what it’s worth, Zonal Marking has long argued for the strong advantage that comes from having a spare central defender. Two strikers against two central defenders creates a very strong advantage. The innovation, as I see it, is taking the game to Chelsea with this formation, with high pressing, and whatnot.
“if sunderland had played with one striker and one, then that would have been listed as a reason for winning the game”
Not sure about that :S
Cattermole terrorizing Mikel could also have been highlighted as an important step I think.
Shut down the fluent passing of the man at the base of their midfield and that will really cause them problems. Cattermole did the task with relish and for once stayed on his feet and showed discipline. If he sticks with that and cuts out the horror challenges he’ll be a great player.
I completely agree. Thought Cattermole had a cracker of a game. Him and Henderson looked as though they could handle the three Chelsea midfielders by themselves.
Other key points: Bolo Zenden drifting inside, and becoming a playmaker when Sunderland were in possession for Gyan, Welbeck and the onrushing Henderson. For me, Zenden put on a clinic at left-midfield, popping up all over the place and knowing when to come inside (which was most of the time) and when to track Bosingwa’s occassional forays forward.
One thing I would say is that I almost always saw either Welbeck or Gyan tracking back and usually closing down one of the flanks. In one instance that eventually led to the first goal, Welbeck tracked back all the way to his own box, making four different challenges along the way, before storming forward with the ball and feeding Richardson, who in turn released Gyan for the one-on-one, followed by Cech’s spectacular save on Richardson’s rebound attempt.
I’m dissapointed Ancelotti didn’t change his shape at all, unless you count when all the substitutions were made and Chelsea basically had four players (Kalou, Drogba, Anelka) staying uptop. Why not shift to a back three with Ivanovic and Bosingwa tracking Gyan and Welbeck and Ferreira sweeping? Or at the very least try shifting to a 4-4-2 and let the game play out on the individual battles. Maybe Ray Wilkins was a big influence tactically for Carlo, or maybe he thought they could just will themselves back from being 0-1 down at halftime.
The 3v2 advantage was neutralized because Zenden was able to move inside and make it a 3v3. In addition to the fact that Anelka did not track back helped Sunderland. 2 v 2 in the back line of Chelsea was the cause for their vulnerability. For both the goals PF was out of position, for the 1st one onouha ran through the space left by PF, for the 2nd goal in a 2 v 2 situation, PF rushed forward to tackle and was easily beaten to the ball, when the better option would been to let the striker run to you and reduce the space.
Hi ZM,
Absolutely awesome website. But any chance of an analysis of England’s woeful attempt at a football match against France last night? I can only conclude that that bunch of sluggish apes aren’t worthy of your appraisal as they weren’t even attempting to play football?!?
Keep up the good work!
Great analysis as usual, thanks.
Was a great game to watch as a neutral. Sunderland we very impressive, particularly their pressing, touch and passing.
The high pressing game seems to be the way to go at the moment. Barca and Spain have been doing it for a while of course. France did it to England, in the first half at least (didn’t really watch the second). Although part of England’s downfall on Wednesday was playing players that were out of form, out of fitness, or out of their club sides.
Although part of England’s downfall on Wednesday was playing players that were out of form, out of fitness, or out of their club sides
Out of form, out of fitness & out of position. Not that I care, but that was a complete waste of time for England, apart from maybe giving Carroll a bit of experience. And Theo Walcott once again showed he has no football sense/brain. He just stood on the edge of the box & watched as one of goals was created on his side.
It’s a sad day when our whole nation views a player who doesn’t do much other than kicking the ball 20 metres in front of him and then sprinting to it as the future of our international team.
I just don’t see the point in Capello anymore. He promised to change everything and we look even more clueless than we did under Eriksson. Can someone please tell me what Barry does? Not particularly great at defending, attacking or positioning himself (the Germans are probably still laughing at his anaemic display) yet he always makes the squad.
Carrick might be lightweight but at least his distribution is fantastic. Hopefully Hargreaves can put his injuries behind him and we’ll be done with Barry. Then there’s Ferdinand. Clearly lost that bit of pace he had as both Malouda and Benzema glided past him as though he wasn’t there.