After a month-long hiatus, Chelsea players are back on the Fantasy Premier League (FPL) radar with some appealing fixtures in the next four Gameweeks and beyond – and they also have a new manager at the helm.
Above: Chelsea’s next eight Premier League fixtures
Graham Potter was appointed head coach of the Blues over two weeks ago but he has yet to take charge of his new team in the Premier League, with Chelsea’s Gameweek 7 and 8 matches postponed in the wake of Queen Elizabeth II’s death.
We have, however, seen Potter lead his troops into a UEFA Champions League match, the 1-1 draw with RB Salzburg in mid-September.
It was a fixture that passed us by to some extent in the lead-up to Gameweek 8 (Chelsea weren’t involved in that round of games) but with the international break affording us a bit of respite, we will revisit Potter’s first game in charge here.
The obvious caveat is that it is far too premature to be drawing any concrete conclusions from what we saw against Salzburg, so we’re more at the ‘early observations’ stage.
TACTICS
On paper, at least, Chelsea set up in a 3-5-2 against Salzburg.
Reece James (£6.0m) and Raheem Sterling (£10.0m) were the notional wing-backs, with Mason Mount (£7.6m) playing slightly deeper than we’re used to seeing him as a right-sided central midfielder.
Kai Havertz (£7.7m) and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (£9.0m) were paired up top.
Kepa Arrizabalaga (£4.4m) lined up between the posts but with Edouard Mendy (£4.9m) unavailable at the time, there’s still uncertainty over who Potter will favour from Gameweek 9 onwards.
Anyone who watched Potter at Brighton and Hove Albion, of course, knows that the new Chelsea boss doesn’t really do rigid formations.
The set-up was, nevertheless, markedly similar to the one that Potter favoured at the tail-end of his tenure at the Amex, and one that brought him great success in the final quarter of 2021/22 and the opening six Gameweeks of this campaign.
“It was a back three as far as I was concerned with Reece and Raheem giving us the width. Salzburg are very strong in the middle with their 4-3-1-2, so it’s not easy to play through the middle of the pitch. We wanted to get some dangerous width, and Reece and Raheem were that.
“They were more full-backs in the lateral positions and then midfield players. I thought we got Raheem into some good situations and Reece as well down that side. Mason, too and we scored a good goal. Then they defended well, blocked, and their goalkeeper made some good saves. We can improve as well, but like I said, how the boys approached the game, I am really, really happy.” – Graham Potter
STERLING A (VERY ATTACKING) WING-BACK
A £10.0m FPL midfielder being shunted out to a left wing-back position doesn’t sound like a match made in heaven but anyone who has witnessed Solly March (£5.0m) and Leandro Trossard (£6.5m) being used in the same roles at Brighton will know that Potter doesn’t really do ‘conventional’.
Wing-backs have become more attack-minded wingers under Potter of late; Trossard delivered six goals, five assists and a whopping 86 points (at 7.2 points per game) in his final 12 appearances under his former boss, a period that coincided with him playing mostly as a nominal left wing-back:
Above: Leandro Trossard’s Gameweek-by-Gameweek record over his most recent 12 league starts
March and Trossard are first and second among Brighton players for goal attempts and shots in the box this season, as well as third and first for penalty-box touches.
One of the keys to making this a successful tactic was the role that Marc Cucurella (£5.2m) played, with the defender lining up as a left-sided centre-half and responsible for covering Trossard ahead of him. Our resident Seagull, Az, said upon the defender’s move to west London that it was “impossible to overstate how important Cucurella was for us; he does the work of about 10 men.“
So a wing-back role isn’t necessarily a bad thing when we see screenshots like the one taken above from Michael Cox’s article in The Athletic, and indeed when we read Potter’s comments below about Sterling not being asked to do too much defending.
“Well, there is that possibility [of Sterling playing at wing-back being risky] but you have to organise around that as you don’t want Raheem really defending in his box too often, and I don’t think he did. I think Marc Cucurella managed the situation quite well. I can’t remember too many opportunities they had down that side.
“Whatever you do, there’s always a plus and a minus, but we were at home, and we wanted to be on the front foot and get some attacking ideas in those positions. Raheem is really good at attacking a backline and scored a fantastic goal. I thought he was really good in the game. Reece balances it off a little bit, and we can still defend in a four if we need to, so that was the thinking.” – Graham Potter
As for the underlying stats, two shots – one of which was Chelsea’s only goal of the game – and one key pass didn’t really do his attacking threat justice.
It may be that, like Trossard at Brighton, Sterling will be used in different roles in different games. It’s hard to imagine the more orthodox left wing-back Ben Chilwell (£5.8m) sitting out the entire season, while the toils of Havertz and Aubameyang up top may persuade Potter to redeploy Sterling centrally.
For now, though, it’s a promising start in an unconventional role.
“I played in a slightly different role under the new manager, and it is one I enjoyed playing, out wide. Over time, I will get better. I am happy to play along the front line but he wanted me out wide, getting at the full-back, getting in the box and creating chances. The more time under him [Potter] I think the better it will be for us.” – Raheem Sterling
JAMES AND CUCURELLA
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