How PSG Used Technical IQ To DESTROY Chelsea In The Champions League | OneFootball

It is more than fair to say that Chelsea endured a horrendous tie against the reigning European Champions.

Whilst some would argue that they contested well for parts, others will point towards the large scoreline where Liam Rosenior’s side were humiliated on the biggest stage.

Tactically, it was a tie of fine margins. So, how did Paris Saint-Germain destroy Chelsea in the Champions League?

First Leg: Paris Saint-Germain 5-2 Chelsea

After what happened last summer in the United States, where Chelsea defeated PSG in the Club World Cup final, this tie was definitely built up as a ‘repeat or revenge’ affair.

Paris Saint-Germain haven’t been firing on all cylinders as they were doing last season whilst Chelsea continued to learn the ways of Liam Rosenior. Some expected a tight contest, but it soon quickly fell apart.

The first leg was an intriguing contest at the Parc des Princes. Chelsea had a belief they could go to the French capital and play with man-to-man pressing, physically dominating PSG and creating opportunities through high turnovers.

In the early exchanges, this did work. But it soon fell apart. Whilst in possession, Luis Enrique’s side noticed how Chelsea were aiming to go man-to-man all across the pitch. So, the solutions they found were through varied press and positional manipulations.

Positional manipulations

With Chelsea man-to-man all across the pitch, it was crucial PSG found time to create space.

In one instance during the first half of the first leg, PSG switched from their usual back three first phase build up to a back four. As a result, it forced another Chelsea player to jump into their front line press and that created this 4-2-4 pressing scenario. With two midfielders left in the centre of the pitch, Chelsea were vulnerable to a central overload in the second phase.

Image Credit: Chelseafc.com

In another instance, PSG would have a midfielder drop into their defensive line in the first phase to form a back three. But the difference between that kind of back three to the one they usually use, Nuno Mendes would have freedom to push on very high and wide to stretch the Chelsea defence whereas usually he would be the full back tucked inside to form a three.

With the midfielder operating as a left centre back and Nuno Mendes high and wide on the far side, this meant Bradley Barcola can come inside which in turn lets Ousmane Dembele drop into a deeper position to create the central overload in the 2nd phase of play.

Image Credit: Chelseafc.com

In the third instance, PSG were able to play through the first line of pressure and then out where they had two players on their right side.

Chelsea try to go man-to-man, but with a mix of little pressure on the ball as well as trying to block off passing lanes as well as getting their distances wrong, PSG could play through and around with ease.

Part of this was Chelsea’s own fault, but the other part is how PSG always look to get more bodies centrally in tight spaces in order to then attack out wide afterwards.

Image Credit: Chelseafc.com

Press manipulations

PSG were clever to allow their players to fluidly rotate, which resulted in them creating gaps and holes to attack. To do this so efficiently shows great coaching to create a cohesive unit.

As Chelsea wanted to be man-oriented as much as possible, it led to them being easily manipulated out of possession which contributed to their downfall later on in the match where they conceded three in 15 minutes.

Let’s focus on the details here in the 8th minute. With Chelsea being man-oriented, Warren Zaïre-Emery sees an opportunity to pull himself out wide from central midfield. This helped Hakimi push on further forward.

With the space vacated by Zaïre-Emery in midfield, Désiré Doué chooses to drop deep from the forward line to occupy the space.

Image Credit: Chelseafc.com

After a passing sequence which lasted about 30 seconds, Ousmane Dembele finds himself in a tight pocket where he has the ball at his feet whilst being under pressure from a Chelsea player.

As he dropped deeper, Doué gradually moves towards the vacated area in preparation to attack. The key is he does this steadily which mentally makes the Chelsea players surrounding the area think that there isn’t immediate danger.

Image Credit: Chelseafc.com

As Dembele switches the play across to the near side, Achraf Hakimi comes short to receive the ball. As a result, this means Warren Zaïre-Emery can make the inside run and Paris Saint-Germain were able to create a 2 vs 1 scenario against Marc Cucurella.

Image Credit: Chelseafc.com

With Marc Cucurella stuck in a 2 vs 1 scenario, he had to make the choice of either stepping up to make a tackle or to track the run of Warren Zaïre-Emery.

As he felt obliged to track the outside run, it allowed Hakimi to continue his strive forward and with PSG getting closer to the penalty area, Chelsea were forced to commit a foul and give up significant pitch territory.

Image Credit: Chelseafc.com

Whether the first leg should’ve ended the way it did is up for debate.

But what is certain is that Paris Saint-Germain were able to use their far greater technical IQ in possession to manipulate Chelsea, resulting in them having the edge after the first leg.

Second leg: Chelsea 0-3 Paris Saint-Germain

With the tie on a knife edge in some sense, PSG knew that they needed to control proceedings at Stamford Bridge whilst Chelsea had the choice of either keeping things tight early on before an attacking surge late on or going full throttle from the first whistle. They clearly chose the latter, knowing they had to get at least three goals to get back into the tie.

But the Liam Rosenior game plan for the match quickly got exposed and fell apart in front of his eyes. Chelsea wanted to go man-to-man across the pitch once again, with the idea of forcing high turnovers to create chances.

But a lesson they hadn’t learnt from their trip to Paris was that they were playing one of the best possession based teams in the world.

It didn’t take long for Luis Enrique’s team to dismantle Chelsea’s heavy man-oriented approach from both positional and press manipulation perspectives.

Positional manipulation

The positional manipulation PSG used early on was somewhat similar to moments during the first leg. Ousmane Dembele would move deeper and more towards the inside right channel, with both Wingers holding width on either side.

With Dembele occupying that inside channel and Barcola holding width on the right hand side, that meant Chelsea’s man-oriented pressure was manipulated to be dragged across in order to cover that threat.

As a consequence to that, it meant they had a big gaping hole at the heart of the defence which meant Safonov could direct the ball into that area where Kvicha Kvaratskhelia ran onto and went on to score.

Image Credit: TNT Sports

Press Manipulation

Already being in total control, and with Chelsea continuing to try push for a goal during the first half, Paris Saint-Germain continued to find ways to manipulate Chelsea.

On this occasion, it led to a goal which was ruled out for offside. But the ease they had in technically crafting it was excellent use of press manipulation.

Ousmane Dembele once again comes into a deeper position, this time to receive on the half-turn. This drags a Chelsea player out of position to follow him through the man-oriented pressure they wanted to apply.

Once again as a consequence, Chelsea were vulnerable in behind and in this moment it was Bradley Barcola who was able to get in behind before creating the opportunity for Kvaratskhelia where the goal was disallowed for offside which occured later in the move.

Image Credit: TNT Sports

WORLD CLASS PSG

Most football fans will likely say that on paper that Paris Saint-Germain are the better team so they would’ve won anyway, which is a fair argument in some sense.

But the issues that some European sides have faced in recent times, including PSG, is that the Premier League teams like Chelsea are physically stronger, meaning they power their way through regardless of game state.

Across this two legged tie, Paris Saint-Germain showed exactly how you can counter man-to-man pressing and how to manipulate man-oriented pressure. The technical IQ to execute their plan was world class football.