There was a sense on Wednesday night that it was almost too easy. As Chelsea held Atlético Madrid at arm’s length with a performance of tremendous purpose and intelligence, the brain was tricked into believing this was just another curiously scheduled Premier League game. Or had they perhaps brought Sunday’s FA Cup quarter-final against Sheffield United forward by a few days? Only the occasional close-up of Koke or Luis Suárez, or an increasingly despondent Diego Simeone prowling the touchline, offered a reminder that this was Atlético, the leaders of La Liga, experienced old Champions League campaigners, the gnarled scrappers who eliminated Liverpool last season.
Perhaps some caution is necessary. La Liga, its period of hegemony over (England pulled level with Spain at the top of the coefficient table on Thursday and the direction of travel is clear), has lapsed into decadence, debt-ridden and moribund, its football notably lacking in pace and verve. What Atlético did to Liverpool last season, as the Covid storm clouds brewed, the coming crisis ready to expose the shonky financial underpinning of the Spanish game, increasingly feels anachronistic, one final flailing of the old empire. Beating the presumptive Spanish champions is perhaps no longer quite the scalp it once was.
But still, there was something enormously impressive about the clinical nature of Chelsea’s victory over both legs – and that despite the absences of Mason Mount and Jorginho through suspension on Wednesday. They dominated possession in the first leg, effectively neutering Atlético, and then in the second were able to play a dual game, both controlling the ball, then looking devastating on the break when Atlético did occasionally advance. The late strike by Emerson Palmieri, perhaps, was nothing more than the sort of well-crafted counterattack that often develops as a desperate side chases the game, but the first provided a glimpse of something far more exciting, of what Chelsea gained by replacing Frank Lampard with Thomas Tuchel.
Timo Werner was notionally the centre-forward, but the move begins with him half-blocking Kieran Trippier’s cross several yards inside his own half on the Atlético right. His touch allows N’Golo Kanté to intercept, and from then everything is done at lightning pace. Kai Havertz to Werner to Hakim Ziyech to the back of the net: a combination of three of the summer signings following the intervention of a player who had seemed out of sorts for a couple of years. It was a devastating goal, not just for what it meant in terms of the scoreline but for what it told Atlético about the danger of committing too many men forward.
But it was significant also in a broader sense. First, this sort of rapid counterattack is characteristic of Tuchel and the school of German football he represents. Jogi Löw may seem slightly old-fashioned now, but the national side’s coach was important in establishing the foundations of the movement; Ziyech’s goal resembled more than anything the sort of goal Löw’s Germany kept scoring at the 2010 World Cup. The one major criticism of Tuchel so far has been a slight sterility about his Chelsea, a lack of flair, but this was evidence of the structures beginning to come together, of how dangerous they can be if teams leave space behind them.
Neither Werner nor Havertz have had easy starts to life in England. Havertz is only 21 and suffered a bout of Covid early in the season, so the doubts about him have at least been tempered with sympathy. But Werner’s suitability for the Premier League has been openly questioned, notably by Harry Redknapp in the “did he bring the Germans in?” interview he gave the day after his nephew’s sacking.
Werner had specialised in that sort of run from deep through the inside-left channel at RB Leipzig, but Lampard never used him in that way, confining him either to a more traditional left-wing or centre-forward role. Wednesday was clear evidence of what the Germans can do (not just Havertz and Werner but also Antonio Rüdiger, whose relationship with Lampard was far from straightforward) with a clear plan.
Perhaps the previous absence of such a plan is simply evidence that the signings were made above Lampard’s head, but it is little wonder that as Werner tried to adapt to a new team in a new league, his confidence disintegrated as he was asked to play in an unfamiliar way.
His goals return remains disappointing, and the way he snatched at a chance late on against Atlético when he probably should have squared it perhaps suggest it still weighs on him, but he is finally beginning to show something approaching his best form.
He’s not the only one. A host of players who had seemed surplus to Lampard have suddenly rediscovered their form under Tuchel. It’s not just the three Germans who are suddenly playing with conviction. The shift to a back three suits Marcos Alonso, but he is now a regular after being exiled for the final four months of Lampard’s reign.
And then there’s Kanté, bumped out of position by Maurizio Sarri‘s Jorginho obsession and, perhaps distracted by an acrimonious legal battle over his image rights in France, a curiously diffident figure under Lampard. But on Wednesday he was back to his best, his reading of the game and his stamina once again combining to create the illusion that there is more than one of him, or that he has the capacity to teleport.
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A project that was sinking under Lampard has been reinvigorated. When Lampard was sacked there was an outcry from those who, seduced by memories of him as a player, insisted he should have been given more time. Subsequent events, though, suggest if anything Chelsea would have benefited by replacing him earlier.
Thirteen games without defeat for Tuchel mean his side should finish in the top four. Porto will be an awkward quarter-final opponent in the Champions League, but Chelsea are clearly on the easier side of the draw. And on Sunday there’s the FA Cup, a break from the priorities but an opportunity to cap a fine first half-season in the job with a trophy.
from Football | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3vViPZw
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