A Blue Up North previews our trip to Everton and our latest encounter with an old foe.
The Christmas weekend sees Chelsea make the trip up to Goodison Park to play Everton in the early kick off on Saturday. The Toffees are experiencing an impressive resurgence of form since they changed managers, with Sam Allardyce already presiding over 4 wins and 1 draw since his appointment.
Big Sam is a former player turned manager with a big character. He had gained a reputation of being a long ball tactician who sends his side to play with 10 well organised players behind the ball who hoof the ball forward for a strong plucky striker to nick the 3 points. However, he is far more of a modern manager, utilising technology and statistics in his approach to matchday tactics and coaching, whilst being a very good man-manager.
This has helped him win his last 2 encounters with The Blues but in reality they were against less focused teams than the current squad. Both were very late on in the last 2 seasons when Chelsea’s fate had already been sealed for each term whilst Sunderland and Crystal Palace were still fighting for every point.
However, this weekend’s tie will clearly be his toughest test. The Blues are on a run of only 1 defeat in their last 11 matches and could go 7 points clear of 5th place with victory today as they look to keep consolidating qualification for next season’s Champions League.
The Everton manager could pick the same starting XI to their last match, a 3-1 win over bottom placed, now managerless Swansea. However, Antonio Conte had planned to return top scorer Alvaro Morata to his starting line up but after “delaying the restart” during Wednesday evening’s League Cup victory he is now banned for Saturday’s match. It is more likely that the manager will opt for the recently used front 3 of Pedro, Willian and Eden Hazard than starting with Michy Batshuayi as the main striker.
His other option could be to alter to a 3-5-2 by choosing Cesc Fabregas instead of Willian, despite the latter’s recent goal scoring exploits. Conte was clearly getting frustrated with some of Willian’s antics and wrong decisions on Wednesday and he probably wants the extra man in midfield in order to gain more control of the match. This will allow Fabregas the opportunity to regularly feed the front 2 who will want to use their speed and trickery to open spaces into which Marcos Alonso, Victor Moses and Tiemoue Bakayoko will try to utilise.
Although on paper this could be a tougher contest for The Blues than in their last 2 Premier League victories, The Toffees have only beaten Chelsea once in their last 8 league meetings and they haven’t even scored in our last 3 encounters. Provided the players apply themselves and give a controlled, committed performance Chelsea should have something to celebrate on their big anniversary. With that in mind I’ll leave you with…
Happy 5,000th Chelsea game everyone!
Written by Jon Ellis. Follow him on Twitter @ClitheroeBlue
