Mauricio Pochettino showed his tactical knowledge on Saturday against Arsenal and really, he should have coached a win if not for a silly mistake by Robert Sanchez.
The Blues were pretty much cruising at 2-0 up with 15 minutes to go and could have even gone 3-0 up through Nicolas Jackson. But he missed a one-on-one chance with David Raya, and Sanchez hit a poor pass to Declan Rice to get one back for Arsenal.
Then they had the upper hand and got the equaliser and it was two points wasted and a massive win missed by Chelsea.
Pochettino’s setup was much talked about before and after the game, and it was genius really. He played Conor Gallagher and Cole Palmer as two number 10s really, or false 9s – however you want to look at it.
But they made Chelsea more compact centrally making it tough for Arsenal to play out and play through them.
“We needed to change the shape and the strategy to attack,” Pochettino said on the setup (via Chelsea Website).
“We tried to have superiority in the middle with Palmer and Conor Gallagher stopping the centre-backs having a reference and getting them into the midfield zone.”
