One thing that we have managed to gather from Chelsea’s very poor pre-season campaign so far, is the formation that boss Thomas Tuchel will be using this season.
Of course, he likes to be flexible and have options to switch formations in-game and for different opponents. However, it looks pretty clear now that the main formation Tuchel will be using is a back three formation, which will see us setup mainly in the 3-4-3.
For me, this pains me. This doesn’t bring the best out of players like Mason Mount, who is a midfielder and not an attacker for me, and it also doesn’t set us up to be a real attacking threat with a lack of numbers in the final third.
But Tuchel’s words at the end of a truly embarrassing 4-0 defeat to Arsenal in the early hours of this morning, suggests that the pain will continue, for me at least….
“We discussed this many times,” Tuchel said as reported by Football London. “If you want to play three at the back you need to have three in the back. If you don’t, it’s not worth playing three in the back.
“Given Kalidou was only ready for 25 mins today and given who was available, we tried to play 4-4-2. I think it was not a structural problem because we conceded two goals with the back five and two sixes, which we are used to playing.
“It was behaviour in the structure. That’s much more important how we behave. We need to be more lively and aggressive. The level of commitment, the level of physical input, was simply not enough.”