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Chelsea FC, The Blues, Champions of England. Whatever you want to call them they are top, top of England & top of their Champions League group stages. So perhaps a bit of analysis of their tactics wouldn't go amiss. Anyway, to fully understand how Drogba, Malouda, Lampard, Essien & Anelka work together in harmony your going to have to read thousands of words and many tens of pages. But I'm going to summarize the 32 pages I have written on the subject here (although the download link is at the bottom if you want to do some further reading).
What most people describe as our 4-3-3 is actually a slightly modified Christmas tree formation. Ancelotti took the weaknesses of the diamond (mainly lack of width) and fiddled around a bit to sort it out. As you can see it isn’t too different. To make this work effectively Malouda should be set to “hug touchline” on his wide play and to swap with Lampard. This combined with Ashley Cole’s thundering runs down the wing should help to recreate Chelsea’s thundering left wing. This should be the most used weapon in anyone's weaponry if they are playing a Chelsea game.
When Anelka replaces Drogba, Chelsea’s system of play changes so that Malouda stays wide, ready to drill crosses in for Anelka’s poaching instincts to take advantage of. This is a strong alternative when Drogba is not fully fit or against teams which play well against the more direct style of play having Drogba up front encourages. Ancelotti's other common weapon is the diamond, although it has largely been dropped due to lack of width, to read about that in detail, see here. Its not quite as detailed as the guide attached, but it tells you all you need to know about how to play.
Plug & Play
Article
So that's it from me for now, but you can download my tactics if you want to plug & play (its surprisingly detailed) and the article is there too if you really want to understand Chelsea... Once I've had some sleep I'll post some more of this kind up here for you!
