Chelsea fell to a 2-0 defeat at home to Liverpool on Sunday. It was a game in which the Blues struggled from the start to gain control. Manager Frank Lampard’s tactics simply tried to exploit Timo Werner’s pace to hit on the counter-attack.
It was a basic tactic for a club that have spent over £200 million in the transfer market. In addition, it was a tactic that failed miserably and backfired on them. Centre-back Andreas Christensen was rightfully sent off for hauling down Sadio Mane, but the issues were apparent before that.
To combat Christensen’s sending off, Lampard chose to remove his £72m signing Kai Havertz to replace him with a defender. Havertz, who looked world-class at Bayer Leverkusen last term, received no service in the first half as the team’s No. 9.
Havertz’s lack of first-half involvement was just part of Lampard’s tactic mess-up on Sunday. Rather than have the German play the “Roberto Firmino role” like he did at Bayer Leverkusen, Lampard merely deployed Havertz as a striker to challenge two strong centre-backs.
Werner was played on the wing to run off him. Playing him down the left gave Chelsea a player advantage over right-back Trent Alexander-Arnold, a player better at going forward than attacking. Yet, the Blues rarely got Werner the ball and he struggled to challenge Liverpool’s defence.
The former RB Leipzig forward’s biggest contribution was winning a penalty which was then saved by Alisson Becker – Jorginho's shot was well tracked by the goalie. Remarkably, Turbo Timo managed a mere shot against Liverpool. It was a low-percentage shot from outside the 18-yard box.
In comparison to Havertz, it was a great day for Werner. Havertz took zero shots at goal before being hooked. Why Lampard chose to keep Mason Mount or Mateo Kovacic on rather than his expensive signing showed a manager afraid to be overrun.
Mount offered nothing to the side on Sunday. He took one shot with it coming from about 25-yards out. Liverpool’s defence, which featured Fabinho at centre-back, deserves massive amounts of credit for their play and keeping Alisson clean in goal.
Chelsea took just five shots with three landing on goal. They were still expected 0.92 goals in the game. Jorginho’s penalty, which was subsequently missed, most likely produced the high figure.
Even though Chelsea were down to 10 men, their £200m spend should have resulted in them challenging Liverpool more than they did.
The Blues tallied just one DEEP pass (a pass completed within 20-yards of goal that wasn’t a cross). It showed the lack of creativeness the team had on Sunday and has going forward.
Injuries to Christian Pulisic and Hakim Ziyech do not help. However, Chelsea showed the same problems defensively against Liverpool on Sunday that they showed in three losses to the Reds in 2019-20.
Lampard’s Chelsea are an expensive side that looks to have papered over the cracks after matchday 2.