Before yesterday's draw with Manchester United, it had been another relatively abject week for Rafael Benitez at Chelsea. By no means his worst, but a far cry from his best (actually considering the way his Chelsea career has gone so far, I hope for his sake his best week has yet to come).
Their performance against Steaua Bucharest in the Europa League last Thursday was the limpest I think I've seen in the Abramovich era. They had beaten West Brom in the league a few days earlier, but it was a relatively standard 1-0. Three points, yes, but hardly a game to write home about.
So three days after being seen off by the might of Steaua, a trip to an angry Manchester United, still visibly raw and fuming from their controversial exit from the Champions League at the hands of Real Madrid result, is probably the last thing an "under the cosh" manager would want—especially with a scorned Sir Alex Ferguson, Benitez's nemesis, lying in wait.
Twelve minutes in and two goals down, you (obviously depending on who "you" are) worried for Chelsea. It seemed like they were going to be the proverbial lambs to the Old Trafford slaughter. Manchester United seemed to have put their Champions League exit behind them, and Chelsea were going to pay the penalty for simply being in the Red Devil's way.
From then on everyone expected a seemingly rampant Manchester United to turn the screw; Chelsea appeared vulnerable. But the inevitable thrashing didn't culminate. But then, unexpectedly, Manchester United got sloppy and allowed their London rivals back into the game. The way Chelsea got back into it was incredibly impressive.
Then several minutes into the second half, and probably earlier than he normally would have liked, Benitez decided to roll the dice. Eden Hazard came on for Victor Moses, a reasonable change considering the Nigerian's ineffectiveness in the game, and John Obi Mikel came on for Frank Lampard. Unsurprisingly, the Chelsea fans inside the ground at the time weren't too impressed by the latter substitution.
But it did work. The switches allowed Ramires the freedom to make his classic driving runs forward with the ball. A clever move made famous towards the end of last season by Mancini, he throws on a defensive midfielder, thereby unleashing the fearsome might of Yaya Toure on a tiring defence (a tactical manouvre I have literally just coined as "The Yaya Toure Activation," actually something that worked extremely well against Chelsea a few weeks ago).
Both changes had a startling impact; within 15 minutes Hazard had pulled one back and Ramires had marauded through on goal to drill a shot past David de Gea and leveled the game.
Rafa Benitez deserves a level of praise for making the changes he did at the time that he did. But in this case the Spaniard has received too much praise for his substitutions, when in fact he should be being called into question for his original team selection.
Chelsea started the game in a system about as un-Benitez as you could realistically get against another big side. Usually renowned for utilizing one defensive minded full-back, two classic defensive midfielders and occasionally even a full-back on one flank to help track a particularly threatening opposition winger, he instead went with two attacking full-backs, two central midfielders who like to drive forward and two wide players who aren't exactly renowned for their desire to track back. And they paid the penalty for this in the opening exchanges of the game.
His starting line up was probably a reaction to the fallout of Chelsea's awful negative display against Manchester City a couple of weeks ago with the criticism he received for being too cautious probably still fresh in his mind. But this was the wrong game to go too far the other way from the start, even with Manchester United's wide players in such poor attacking form.
There are countless examples of when one or multiple substitutions can be extremely effective. Going back to Manchester United's game against Real Madrid last week, Jose Mourinho acted quickly and excellently to Nani's sending off by bringing on Luka Modric for Alvaro Arbeloa to exploit the newly developed space in Manchester United's midfield zone.
Benitez, however, was merely digging himself out of a hole with his changes against United. Credit for making them, but his team selection was completely at fault for Chelsea's atrocious start to the game. There was no balance between defence and midfield; none of the team compactness Benitez usually craves. Ramires, Lampard, Azpilicueta and Cole were all too eager to get forward, and United should have been out of sight by half-time.
Benitez righted his own wrongs, but how much praise should a manager receive when it was he who was the root cause of his team's initial failures?
For me there is a massive difference between a manager who makes a substitution to exploit an oppositions weakness and a manager who makes a substitution to cover his own earlier errors before its too late. He did react well to save the match, and only the outstretched leg of David de Gea prevented him from winning it, but with Manchester United the way they were after Real Madrid and "Nani-gate," the game was there for the taking.
Read more Chelsea news on BleacherReport.com
~Bleacher Report - Chelsea~
No comments:
Post a Comment