This article was initially published on SBNation’s We Aint Got No History blog in July 2019

You couldn’t write a script like that. The offer to manage the club where he methodically broke every record and proved doubters wrong in 13 seasons arrived on Frank Lampard’s desk after only one full season in management, narrowly missing out on promotion with Derby County.

Lampard takes over after the departure of Maurizio Sarri, who was meant to stay for the long term and focus on implementing a new playing style. But Sarri ended up taking Juventus’ offer after one season and made Chelsea’s season successful only through a late combination of favourable results, winning a trophy Chelsea never quite felt like losing at any point to conclude an underwhelming 64-game season that divided the fanbase like never before.

This is part ONE of a four-part dossier, focusing on the Chelsea FC team Frank Lampard inherits, with an emphasis on player roles and tactics in order to preview the season ahead and try to foresee what to expect.

Part 2: Build-up and the regista
Part 3: Midfield two and box-to-box
Part 4: Scoring goals and player power

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Goalkeepers:

There’s little uncertainty about the identity of the goalkeeper who’ll guard the posts next season. Kepa Arrizabalaga will get the nod, whilst Cabellero will provide backup. The interesting question in the context of a transfer ban though, is who gets to provide the secondary backup.

This is typically a situation in which the club would sign an Eduardo or Robert Green type of player: happy to compete with the number one goalkeeper in training and sit on the bench on weekends, allowing to loan younger goalkeepers in the football league.

But again, we can’t sign players so that suggests either that one of the young goalkeepers (Cumming, Blackman) is kept at the club just in case, or that the club gambles on promoting from the academy, such as Collins, Tié or Ziger, if a third goalkeeper or emergency backup is needed, if one of the main two get injured, on a case-by-case basis.

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Defenders:

Chelsea’s managerial merry-go-round is a never-ending story of setting the cursors between fitting players for the approach chosen (Sarri), or fitting the approach with the players at disposal (Mourinho). It is important to note that Antonio Conte was provided with four defenders of the profile he asked for, in David Luiz and wingbacks Marcos Alonso, Davide Zappacosta and Emerson Palmieri. As a consequence, the team is still very much at his image.

Antonio Conte’s defensive structure notably relied on a three-man defence, in which most of the players featured in what could be argued as being their best role.

César Azpilicueta has always been a busy, unadventurous right back (with a decent early cross in him), probably better equipped to non-conventional defensive roles. An all action defender behind Hazard under Mourinho on the left, or a defensively minded right sided defender under Conte in a back three.

Azpilicueta’s best attacking season at Chelsea to this day was under Rafael Benítez where he delivered 4 assists and almost one cross and chance created per game (0.9) in 27 games as a right back coming from behind.

There has been little difference between Azpilicueta’s output as a right-sided defender in a three under Conte, and an out and out right back under Sarri: 4, 6 and 5 assists in three seasons and roughly one chance created every three games (having missed only one game in three seasons).

This might suggest that Conte and Mourinho were the ones who used Azpilicueta’s skillset in the best role for the team, and as far as attacking input goes, it’s under Benítez that Azpilicueta looked the most like an attacking right back.

Marcos Alonso joined Chelsea in order to fill the very advanced left sided fullback position at Chelsea, which was unused since Ashley Cole used to run up and down the left flank, notably in Ancelotti’s 4-3-3 turning 3-4-3 in 2009-10 (4 goals, 3 assists).

Having joined Bolton in 2009-10, Alonso played 9 times in the Premier League in two seasons and got relegated, before playing his trade in the Championship for half a season, always at left back. A loan at Sunderland to help Gustavo Poyet’s great escape in 2013-14 had him featuring for the first time at wing back in a back 3/5, losing three games on the trot and conceding 9 to West Ham, Liverpool and Tottenham in the spring.

It’s only at Fiorentina that Marcos Alonso started to appear consistently in three at the back formations, either in the three or at wingback, and started delivering at the other end (4 goals and 7 assists in 58 games).

Marcos Alonso is a peculiar player, who’s definitely got a clutch ability to score big goals and perform despite carrying quite the load of criticism and abuse on his back. In Conte’s title winning season, he was also the tallest left-sided defender in the Premier League.

Peculiar players need peculiar roles. Akin to Branislav Ivanovic’s very advanced right back role between 2013 and 2015, which ranked him amongst the most decisive fullbacks in Europe, Marcos Alonso benefitted from a designed position with Antonio Conte (but also from the structural point of view offered by the 3-4-3 formation).

Therefore, Alonso’s season under Maurizio Sarri in a back four was always going to be this unlikely marriage between his history as a quite mediocre top flight left back for Bolton and Sunderland, and his propensity to run to get at the end of crosses at key moments, seen at Fiorentina and as a Premier League-winning left wing-back.

At one point early in the season, Alonso could even be seen as the most potent and unpredictable attacking threat Chelsea had to unlock games, finally ending the season with three shots every couple of games and being the joint biggest provider of goalscoring chances per game (1.1) behind Hazard, Willian and Kanté.

Marcos Alonso is at crossroads. The rumour mill has him seeking for a move away from Chelsea and he’s never going to deliver anything good at both ends as anything other than a wing back; raising genuine questions over his ability to perform well enough in a back-four formation.

David Luiz is an important and long-serving figure in the dressing room. It is thus odd to see fans still surprised at his defensive lapses, considering both Mourinho and Benítez basically shoved him into midfield (then let him go) in order to win silverware — including one Premier League title.

Antonio Conte went even further than that and decided, for the better, to play two defenders beside him, and leave him the sole responsibility of commanding the line and switching play — which he did excellently.

Sarri probably foresaw the importance of having David Luiz on his side, in a mutual win-win situation for both, to buy more time and get a new contract, respectively. It took one misinterpretation of press conference mish-mash about switching to zonal defence for some to point out that David Luiz failing to get to the ball first at Newcastle was due to Sarri’s new instructions. It was simply plain poor defending on that cross, which David Luiz got Chelsea fans used to during his first spell.

Not every defensive game model relies on getting first to the ball. But it’s also one of the oldest tricks in the book to suggest that the previous manager was exceedingly keen on an old-fashioned way of defending and that the new way is for the better (and therefore will require time and patience). After all, Rafa Benítez is one of the biggest proponents of zonal defending since the turn of the millennium, but that didn’t prevent a certain José Mourinho from claiming he wanted to change the way the team would defend towards a more “zonal” approach, when he took over for a second time.

David Luiz is still a strong leader and vocal presence at the back, a proactive defender with incredible athleticism, but also keen to lose markers in the box. His strongest attribute besides heading home corners would be the ability to play long passes into space. Last season, it often looked like the only way Chelsea could put teams off-balance when sitting deep — or simply being deprived of possession by teams who could retain and press better than we could — was with a long pass from David Luiz to Pedro or Kanté running into space.

Regardless of the defensive structure chosen by Frank Lampard, David Luiz looks all but guaranteed to get a starting spot, at least at the start of the season.

Antonio Rüdiger had a solid season. He put into practice Sarri’s instructions, which made him reach unchartered personal heights as far as volume of passes was concerned — 76 passes per game and more than 9 out of 10 reaching the target, which is a third more than his usual 40-50 passes at Roma or Stuttgart, and one point better than he ever did in terms of accuracy.

That said, his role was merely to keep the flow going and feed David Luiz or Jorginho who were the ones tasked to find angles forward.

There is a genuine case to be made for Chelsea having had relatively few situations to defend as a direct consequence of how long they kept possession, but at the same time, the opposition never looked closer to scoring than whenever they nicked possession and played over the top.

In that regard, Rüdiger’s reading, anticipation and ability to deal with opponents with no defensive support was one of the main factors in Chelsea conceding only one more goal under Sarri than under Conte the previous season. The only concern regarding Rüdiger is that he’s already on his fourth knee-related injury (and subsequent surgery) at just 26 years old, and that might take its toll in terms of raw speed at one point. Rüdiger was still the fourth quickest Premier League outfielder in 2018 behind Sané, Van Aanholt and Sissoko.

Nevertheless, he’s much more than just raw pace and covering for long passes. His character and commitment to defend the box made him one of the few who were reminiscent of the Chelsea of “old” on several occasions last season.

Considering that it is pretty much accepted that Chelsea sat deeper in the League Cup final by demand of the players, and given Rüdiger’s relative distance with Sarri — i.e. not heaping praise, unlike David Luiz — it is not a stretch to assume that Rüdiger was one of those raising the point in the first place.

“I think everyone has adapted to new things – also the coach. You saw the way we played against Tottenham and Manchester City. It was different to the way we played in the first three months. Everyone needs to adapt, everyone needs to learn and it is good that it has happened in this moment.”

“In life, you need to adapt to things. This League is different to Italy, you have to adjust a bit. The coach learned from that game against Manchester City. There we went high, we went to press, we wanted to win the ball and everyone knows what happened.”

“The thing about him is that people need to give him a bit of time. He also came from a different competition, he is probably not used to this hard game. You also need to adapt.”

–Antonio Rüdiger

Andreas Christensen might get more consideration this season but he also finds himself at crossroads. At 23, his ball-playing skills and ability to play in midfield (especially for Denmark) and the fact that he went through the Academy won’t forever make up for sometimes being too nice in the challenge and losing sight of players running beyond him.

Otherwise he’ll become the type of hyper-specialised central defender who’ll never feature consistently for a top club — nor a team with less possession than the opposition.

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Unfortunately, he plays in a position in which consistency is key and it definitely did not help his case that Maurizio Sarri played him only when he decided to rotate the starters, and in which back-ups lacked rhythm to slot into the starting eleven without looking a bit rusty for at least one half of football.

Kurt Zouma and Fikayo Tomori are going to challenge for the remaining fourth centre back position, which is actually a 3-man challenge until Rüdiger gets back to full fitness and is in contention to start competitive games.

Zouma probably won’t accept another loan and will seek a move elsewhere (like Lukaku back in the day) if he doesn’t fit into Chelsea’s plans.

Playing in central defence is always a matter of ticking boxes. Sergio Ramos or Matthijs De Ligt epitomize that full package of outstanding athleticism, reading of the game, ball-playing skills, leadership and aerial play. They can therefore play in every type of configuration, as the Real Madrid captain proved by winning three Champions League titles in a row. For the other clubs and defenders, who gets to play is a by-product of who can sign for the club and what is the subsequent best strategy with players at disposal in that club.

Finding the balance between extremely reliable no nonsense penalty box defenders who can barely pass water, and extremely creative “ball-progressor” play-making defenders who can barely keep their man in sight in their own box is hard.

Defending crosses has been a recurring issue all season for Chelsea, and Kurt Zouma certainly offers presence, aerial ability and strength in duels that lacked at times this season.

The likeliest scenario is that Zouma gets to stay this season, whilst Tomori gets another loan. It would be really good to see him in the Premier League — although playing 46 games instead of a dozen would still be the better option for his development.

We can therefore suppose that the preferred central defender pairing will be Zouma and David Luiz to start the season. Who gets left and right spot might offer indication on the amount of ball playing or progression expected from central defenders by Frank Lampard.

Initially a pure right sided defender — he even started his career as a right back for Saint Etienne where he caught the eye of José Mourinh(who could’ve foreseen that!) — especially for France U20 where he used to feature as a front foot defender alongside Samuel Umtiti, Zouma was the only 1994-born player in the team that would go on to win the 2013 U20 World Cup.

Zouma is seen here picking out none other than his future Everton team-mate Lucas Digne with a pin-point diagonal in the build-up of the opening goal, a few months before the tournament. https://www.youtube.com/embed/rmir5OSGe-8?rel=0

Zouma on his preferred right foot, and David Luiz on the left would mean a bigger emphasis on finding angles and driving with the ball. Zouma has developed into a player fully capable to attack space on the ball and feed midfielders, or switch play with a diagonal.

That said, Zouma has been playing mostly on the left of Everton’s central defensive partnership, paired either with right-footed Mason Holgate or Michael Keane who were more frequently seen progressing with the ball. Having David Luiz on his strong foot, with Kurt Zouma on the left, would instead suggest that only one of the two would be predominantly tasked with playing out and bring overload into midfield.

Who gets to play fullback will probably also determine the pairing in central defence.

The likeliest fullback pair would be the marauding Marcos Alonso or Emerson on the left and Azpilicueta on the right, considering that Reece James is far from a full recovery. Zappacosta isn’t offering more than Azpilicueta, with a slightly better early cross but probably not as good at the other end. It is too soon for Castillo and Maatsen to be considered yet — both being reminiscent of a young Patrick van Aanholt early in 2010-11.

Then, it’s about finding the right formula:

• One strong side defensively with Zouma and Azpilicueta on one side, and one more adventurous one with David Luiz and Marcos Alonso (or Emerson)
• Trying to balance and even out, with an advancing fullback and a covering central defender, and an advancing central defender to make up for a more cautious fullback: reminiscent of Ashley Cole with Terry sitting, and Ricardo Carvalho going forward with a – then – cautious Ivanovic in 2010.

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We shouldn’t be looking for a revolution at the back. It is most probable that Frank Lampard sets up Chelsea with a back four. The line-up pretty much picks itself due to injuries so far, and the only doubt lies at left back.

Also, there aren’t enough central defenders to consider playing with five at the back at the start (and little point keeping both Zouma and Tomori). But the personnel especially at full back is more suited to very advanced positions.

Looking at how Pochettino found the right balance between a very good defensive structure and very advancing fullbacks suggest that it’s not much a matter of tactical systems but attitude and commitment to make sure everyone gives an extra effort not to leave players exposed at the back — after all, running is the one thing Chelsea’s full backs can do all game long.