Tactical Analysis: Why Brentford shredded Chelsea in the second half

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!! Well, not Chelsea fans. The game against Brentford was a painful reminder of the problems in the squad. These problems are a lot more than defending. Everyone knows about the defensive problems, but not many know that the issues are beyond that. In this game, we’d talk about why the game turned out the way it did.

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Against Brentford, Xabi Alono’s men lost the game not particularly because they were outsmarted tactically. No, it was because they had no answers for Brentford’s fairly straightforward tactical plan. It looked like the Blues played well in the first 45 minutes, but that was because they didn’t concede any goals or big chances. 

Everything Brentford had planned started from the first half, but came together in the second half.

Defending in Numbers: Brentford’s plan to quash Chelsea’s attacking juice

Every time Chelsea came forward, the Bees always made sure they had many bodies to defend. Their defending plan was not so much to cut off passing lanes or control spaces, but simply to make it difficult for the Blues to make progress by increasing the number of players they had to get through. 

This meant Keith Andrews made a decision to sacrifice numbers in the middle and final third, for defense. The home side was able to do this because of the speed of the average Brentford player. Counter attacks were easy for the Bees because several players easily joined the attack when they won the ball back. 

In the first half, Chelsea continued trying to attack down the flanks, but Andrew’s men kept handling those attempts with relative ease. Alonso’s men didn’t seem to have any other plan, and Brentford figured that out. The effectiveness of this strategy can be seen in the number of blocked shots on the Blues chart. 

Chelsea had seven shots blocked, and considering Alonos’s men took 12 shots, that leaves five that could even get to the goalie. The Blues also took three shots that were off target, which is something that happens when you’re shooting from distance to avoid shooting through traffic.

In the second half, the Blues got more desperate, lost concentration, and were far more exposed. This showed in the loss of concentration in set pieces, as well as in open play. Let’s look at some of these numbers.

Big chances, set pieces and counterattacks

Brentford was able to get four big chances from set pieces and fast breaks. Chelsea’s attack was slow and predictable, and so when they inevitably lost the ball, the home side knew exactly what to do. 

In set pieces, the Blues lost concentration, and the first goal was a perfect example of that. Jaiden Anthony had a free header inside the six-yard box. Maxence Lacroix and Wesley Fofana were on both sides of the Brentford forward, but neither picked him up.

For Anthony to get a 0.96 expected goal (xG) chance from a header, you know that Chelsea did something so horribly wrong. The third goal was more from open play than from a throw-in set piece, but Alonso’s men handled it equally badly. 

The second goal was from a fast break, which was what the game plan was supposed to produce. Chelsea kept doing the same thing, and when Andrew’s men clocked this, they started devoting fewer men in defense and attacking more. 

Brentford created four big chances, and they all came in the second half.

Shooting

In addition to creating better chances than Chelsea, their shooting was even better. The difference in shooting between both teams was night and day. No, that’s not an exaggeration. Let’s look at it.

Brentford (13) took one more shot than their opponents, and created four times the number of clear cut chances. In xG, the home side outdid their opponents (2.65 to 0.83), but they also squashed Chelsea in quality of shots too. 

In expected Goals on Target (xGOT), Brentford gathered 3.66, compared to Chelsea’s 0.23. Now, xGOT is dependent on the number of shots on target a team takes, so your number is likely to be low if you take only a few. 

Brentford took six, and Chelsea took two. This means on average the Bees had 0.61 xGOT per shot on target, by comparison, the Blues had 0.12. xGOT is a good indication of quality of shots, and Andrew’s men blew the FA Cup finalists out of the water.

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Conclusion

Every game has its nuance, but these things are usually patterns that manifest in different ways. Chelsea hired a set piece coach in late July, which is an indication that the hierarchy knew there was a problem. The inability to create good chances is not something to panic about yet, but if Alonso’s men continue to be one-dimensional, they’d start creating fewer and fewer high quality chances.