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RETRO TACTICS EPISODE 1
Team: Chelsea FC
Manager: Jose Mourinho
Era: 04/05 - 05/06
In the first installment of our Retro Tactics series, we look at the almost invincible Chelsea team of 2004-2006, when incoming manager Jose Mourinho led them to consecutive Premier League titles in his first two seasons at the club.
Key Players: John Terry, Frank Lampard, Didier Drogba, Claude Makelele, Eidur Gudjohnsen, Petr Cech.
Honours: Premier League, FA Cup, League Cup, Community Shield.
Team: Chelsea FC
Manager: Jose Mourinho
Era: 04/05 - 05/06
In the first installment of our Retro Tactics series, we look at the almost invincible Chelsea team of 2004-2006, when incoming manager Jose Mourinho led them to consecutive Premier League titles in his first two seasons at the club.
Key Players: John Terry, Frank Lampard, Didier Drogba, Claude Makelele, Eidur Gudjohnsen, Petr Cech.
Honours: Premier League, FA Cup, League Cup, Community Shield.
Category
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SportsTranscript
00:00Hello everybody Adam Cleary from 442 here and welcome to the first installment, I've still got this on, of Retro Tactics.
00:17We've been wanting to do something like this for a little while and at the time of recording it's still somehow an international break, nothing else is going on so we thought why not.
00:27So this, this right here is Jose Mourinho's Chelsea from about 2004 to 2006, it is the most defensively solid, mathematically speaking, team the Premier League has ever seen, it won back to back championships, it won FA Cups, it won League Cups, it made the club's first ever serious forays into the latter stages of the Champions League, it is probably the most tactively innovative team the Premier League had ever seen.
00:56Alright so a little bit of background, Chelsea obviously already had money by the time Mourinho had come in, Ranieri had finished second and he'd also got to the semi-finals of the Champions League the season before but they just, they weren't quite cemented as one of the top, top clubs in the division, it was all very new to them.
01:11But then as everybody knows Jose Mourinho entered the fray and just honestly pretty much overnight transformed the club to having the sort of stature that it still has today, to be one of the big four in the Premier League, to be one of the top six, all these terms didn't really exist until then but they did pretty much the second he walked in that door.
01:31I'm European champion so I'm not one of the bottle, I think I'm a special one.
01:39And the way he did that was with this, this team, this system, this formation, these players, he gave the Premier League several things it had never seen before and it took them two full seasons to work out how to do anything with it.
01:55Now obviously across two seasons loads of players come in and out, loads of players play very important roles even within the same system so we've got it like this but it could just as easily be Damian Duff in either of these wide positions, Essien and Thiago, they were both really important as that other eight alongside Frank Lampard, Wayne Bridge and William Gallas, they both had about a season as the first choice left back in this system.
02:16And you could, people forget, but you could have Ida Goodjohnson in there instead of Didier Drogba, in fact Ida Goodjohnson is a player we're going to talk about more in a little bit.
02:28But the key to all this really, the man who literally invented a position for himself based on this team is Claude McAleely.
02:36He sat in this sitting number six role at the base of a 4-3-3, something you see all the time now but back then was just mind-blowing to English teams.
02:46And that's because, believe it or not, given the name of this YouTube channel and the magazine it produces content for, this country was really obsessed with 4-4-2 back then.
02:57Like some teams would play it as a diamond, some players would have a holding midfielder, an attacking midfielder, some players would have a 4-4-1-1 or occasionally you might even see a back three every now and then.
03:07But by and large, in the Premier League, most weeks, most teams had some kind of 4-4-2.
03:13And what that meant was they always had two central midfielders.
03:18And we could do a whole other video on why that was but it's fairly common sense, it gives you great balance across the pitch.
03:23You have two players in pretty much every single position.
03:27You've got two players on the flanks, you've got two players in central defence, you've got two players in the middle of the pitch, you've got two players up front.
03:32There are twos everywhere, so you're never lopsided and it's not easy to break you down.
03:37And even in Mourinho's own words, the whole reason he played this system was because the 4-4-2 was so popular in the Premier League.
03:43Like he's literally quoted as saying, if I have a triangle in midfield, I always have an advantage against a pure 4-4-2 where the central midfielders are side by side.
03:53And that's precisely what Makaleli was for.
03:55Like Petr Cech, one of the greatest goalkeepers in the history of the Premier League, couldn't kick, couldn't really distribute the ball well.
04:01That's not what the game was about then.
04:02There was no onus on the goalkeeper to be able to find players across the pitch with his kicking.
04:07So when Chelsea wanted to play out from the back, which they had to against most teams who were sitting off them,
04:11the centre-backs would then, they would split a little bit, Terry and Carvalho.
04:14The full-backs would push slightly further up and Makaleli would drop to about here.
04:18And he would find one of these three players with his first kick out every single time.
04:24Now another thing that was totally innovative back there was Terry and Carvalho.
04:28You tended to at most have one sort of ball-playing centre-back, but that wasn't really a defender's job back then.
04:35They were a luxury to have, but you wanted someone who could head, kick, tackle, mark, do all the conventional things.
04:40And here in this Chelsea side, you had two ball-playing centre-backs.
04:45Now John Terry does not get enough credit for his on-the-ball ability because the game rapidly caught up with him
04:50and then surpassed him during his career.
04:52But at this point, in 0-4, 0-5, 0-6, he was so far ahead of the curve in what he could do in possession.
04:59Both he and Carvalho would receive the ball in this sort of area, and if the opposition sat off them,
05:03they would be free to carry this forward, up the pitch, and help the rest of the team advance.
05:08But if the opposition didn't sit off them and try to challenge them for that ball,
05:11then it would almost always go into Makaleli, and that's when they would have problems.
05:16And this is the whole idea with having three players in central midfield,
05:19because it gives you five players in this area.
05:22So if you imagine this is some other team, they're two centre-forwards,
05:25they've gone and closed down Terry and Carvalho, so they can't play the ball forward.
05:29That leaves you with two central midfielders marking Chelsea's other two central midfielders.
05:35Now assuming either Terry, Carvalho or Cech can then get that ball into Makaleli, what do you do?
05:40These two don't really want to start chasing back, because that's no way to defend.
05:44Makaleli's just free to go through when you're running after him.
05:46And if one of these two then decide to move forwards, well, now you've got a free man in central midfield.
05:52Pretty much one of the few places on the pitch you can't ever afford to leave a spare man.
05:56Alright, okay, so maybe what you do is you play like a 4-4-1-1 instead then,
06:00so you can put a player in this pocket here to stop Makaleli getting on the ball.
06:04Alright, you've kind of matched them up, but now you can't really defend against Terry and Carvalho.
06:09Two ball-playing centre-backs who will very happily then just find players further up the pitch.
06:14Oh, but wait, hang on, you've got wingers, haven't you?
06:16And they're kind of in this area of the pitch, so maybe what you do is you say one of your midfielders
06:20can push onto Makaleli when he gets onto the ball, but one of your wide men,
06:25he's got to then tuck inside to mark the other central midfielder, thus not leaving you exposed.
06:30That'll work, won't it?
06:31Well again, no, because now you've left one of Chelsea's full-backs free,
06:34and in this Chelsea system, they were also doing something very innovative with full-backs.
06:39Like, if you don't remember this period in football, this is going to sound ridiculous,
06:43but prior to Mourinho coming into the Premier League, full-backs as standard virtually did no attacking.
06:49They were still seen as defenders.
06:51Like, yes, there were some that were ahead of their time and would do this job in certain teams,
06:54but it wasn't really seen as part of their job spec to get down the line and get up the pitch.
07:00But in this Mourinho side, that's what he instructed them to do.
07:03He wanted them to physically carry the ball up the wing and, on occasion,
07:07provide the width for sort of an attacking front five.
07:09And why would you have them provide the wing, though, when you've got these two excellent wide attackers in a 4-3-3?
07:15Surely they should be nice and wide.
07:16And yes, they were, and part of their job was to get to the byline like traditional wingers were doing
07:21and to put crosses onto Drogba's head, but also Mourinho would quite often invert his wingers.
07:27He would switch them over mid-game.
07:28He would switch them over several times in the same game.
07:31And if you found yourself on the side where you weren't on your strong foot,
07:34your job was to then come inside and effectively play along the centre forward.
07:39It was inverted wingers before inverted wingers were really a thing.
07:42And if you can picture a winger inverting on this side,
07:44then the full-back making the run to provide the width there,
07:47and then one of the number eights, usually Frank Lampard arriving late to support the centre forward,
07:51you've got this really dangerous attacking front five that can be formed several different ways on different sides of the pitch
07:59and is virtually impossible to track the runs of.
08:03The only difference between this sort of front five and the kind of front five that Pep does now
08:06is that rather than the defenders shuffling around into a back three,
08:09you'd then have McAlealy moving across into the space the full-back had vacated
08:13to always keep that steady four there.
08:16And as ridiculous as it looks, Chelsea would quite often end up in situations where they still had a full-back four
08:23and then one player, either Thiago or Essien, sort of patrolling this space,
08:27and then just five attackers.
08:29And this is why it, like, genuinely bugs me when I hear this Chelsea team being referred to
08:34as, like, a defensive, stable, quite boring outfit.
08:38Like, yes, they only conceded 15 goals, and that's incredible.
08:41But that was mostly because they dominated the ball so much, not because they were negative.
08:45They scored something like 74, 75 goals that season.
08:50They were second only behind Arsenal.
08:51Like, they were a forward-thinking, attacking side.
08:54They created loads of chances.
08:56But the reason this was so hard to defend against, though,
08:58is we have sort of formed this front five using the left-hand side of the pitch, right?
09:03So we've got McAlealy here.
09:04He's shuffled across, but that's because the full-back went up that way,
09:07and that winger inverted, and then that number eight, etc., etc.
09:10But they would do that on the opposite side just as freely.
09:15Like, Mourinho didn't play with two overlapping full-backs and two inverted wingers.
09:20He would only play with one at a time.
09:23But during the course of the game, they would change which side that was happening from.
09:27So just imagine it again over on this side this time.
09:29The winger he inverts comes across to about here.
09:32That full-back then gets all the way up and provides a width.
09:34This number eight now gets into the front five.
09:37McAlealy then sweeps across to the right-hand side to cover that space,
09:40and you've got the exact same shape all over again.
09:43So, long story short here with McAlealy as the pivot in the base of a three-and-full-back
09:47that could come at you overlapping from each side,
09:50and wingers that could both invert and get to the byline to provide their own width,
09:53and two separate number eights who were really happy getting up front with Drogba.
09:58Chelsea, in their build-up phase when they were creating attacks,
10:01could either go through the middle because they had numerical superiority,
10:05or they could go down the flanks where they could hurt you in so many different ways.
10:10And again, I'll just keep saying this, ball-playing centre-backs, an overlapping full-back,
10:16inverting wingers, and three players in midfield, you just see that every single game now.
10:22But back in 04, my friends, nobody had a f***ing clue what was going on.
10:28But for all the innovating Jose Mourinho did, for all the things you'd never seen before,
10:32there was one thing Chelsea were absolutely brilliant at, which was quintessentially British.
10:38And that was, when the situation called for it, they could go route one better than anyone in the league.
10:45Czech to Drogba was a weapon all its own.
10:49And if you've been sitting there, doing the maths, counting on your fingers, thinking,
10:53hang on, if they've got numerical superiority in this part of the pitch,
10:57surely that only happens because they've got numerical unsuperiority,
11:01which is probably a word, in that area of a pitch.
11:03Because if they were playing 4-4-2, they'd have two wingers and two strikers,
11:07so that's four players, and the defence has got four players in it.
11:11So now you're at a disadvantage. Surely that's where that should be a problem.
11:15But no, my friends, because that is the beauty of Didier Drogba.
11:19He got a lot of criticism in his first two seasons at Chelsea because he wasn't a prolific goal scorer.
11:26He had arrived at a high reputation for a high fete, supposedly the most ambitious club in the land,
11:31and he wasn't bagging them in for fun every single game.
11:34But that is not what made Drogba a world-class player in this team.
11:39It was his ability to bully defenders, to bring his teammates into play.
11:44Chelsea scored loads of goals, not because he was the one putting them in the net,
11:48but because he was so important to the system that created them.
11:52Now, as we've said back then, pretty much every team, not all, but pretty much every single team
11:57had a back four, so you can visualise it here.
11:59It's easy to see. They are man-for-man in the wide areas,
12:02and theoretically, they've got an advantage over Drogba.
12:05Frank Lampard's main job in this Chelsea side was to be arriving late into the box
12:09to either get on the end of crosses or to offer a pullback option to be an unmarked threat.
12:14And you can see, theoretically, that's really easy.
12:16One defender marks Drogba, and one watches for Lampard's run.
12:20So how, then, how did Lampard score so many goals in this team?
12:26Well, it's a combination of two things.
12:28First of all, that Frank Lampard was undeniably the best player in the world at the time
12:33for timing a late run into the box.
12:35It was just really hard to defend against anyway.
12:38But also, because this chap here wasn't watching for Frank Lampard.
12:42This chap here was helping to mark Drogba.
12:45So often, in games, Drogba would be able to physically tie up both centre-backs,
12:50swapping between which one was marking him,
12:52the other never feeling totally confident in passing him on or letting him go,
12:56and that would always create loads of room for Lampard to get in.
13:00And it wasn't just Lampard either, by the way.
13:02When you've got wide players who are looking to invert,
13:04and you've got a centre-back who's been drawn away from that area
13:06because they're watching Drogba,
13:08and a full-back who doesn't really want to get dragged into cover,
13:11then there's a whole area for them to play in.
13:13He was a space-creating machine.
13:15And in even more Mike Bassett terms than that,
13:18he was always an option against a high defensive line
13:20to just win a flick on
13:22and allow either of the wide players or Lampard to run beyond him into that space.
13:27Like, the guy, it's such a classically British type of centre-forward to have
13:30in what's such an innovative European system to play.
13:34Now, you know when you go to a nice hotel,
13:35and they give you a continental breakfast,
13:37and it's all nice little pastries and some jams and stuff,
13:39and some little cooked meats, right?
13:41Imagine that, just slab a load of peas pudding on it, right?
13:44That was Drogba in this system.
13:46The thing is, it wasn't always Drogba, right?
13:49And the reason at the start of the video,
13:51I said we were going to come back to Ida Gudjonsson
13:52is because he's very much like the forgotten player of this team.
13:57Like, maybe not a Chelsea fan,
13:58maybe you all remember the contribution he had to this
14:00and how important he was to this Mourinho system,
14:03but I think if you asked any other fan from any other club
14:05to, like, rattle off who made the most appearances for Chelsea in Mourinho's first season,
14:11I don't think any of them, any of them would guess Gudjonsson.
14:14And he did, he started 30 Premier League games in Mourinho's first season.
14:18In fact, in total appearances, when you include substitutes,
14:21he was the second most used player for Mourinho that year.
14:24Genuinely.
14:25Because while he did play up top instead of Drogba in a number of games,
14:29he also played as the other eight in the midfield alongside Frank Lampard.
14:33And he also occasionally played out wide when he was useful in that sort of context.
14:38But also, this is the system Mourinho used to control games in a league
14:42that everybody played 4-4-2.
14:44Sometimes, he didn't want to control the game.
14:47Sometimes, he would genuinely, brace yourself for this,
14:50just play...
14:51A 4-4-2.
14:56McAlealy would slot in alongside Lampard in the centre of midfield
14:59to allow Lampard to use his, frankly, very underrated passing range
15:03and just general midfield busybody activities,
15:05which you just hardly ever saw at Chelsea, but he could definitely do it.
15:09The two wide attackers, they had played at wingers at their previous clubs.
15:12It was the traditional role for their sort of players back then.
15:15And then, just two centre-forwards.
15:17They would occasionally just line up like this.
15:19I mean, not against the big sides, and certainly not often,
15:22but the reason Ida Gajonsson started 30 Premier League games
15:25and Drogba still started 18 was because this was an option.
15:29He was very versus Highland, could do loads of different things,
15:31but this also was something they could just do.
15:34This meant that Mourinho could simultaneously give the Premier League
15:37something it had never seen before, but also take it on at its own game.
15:41And when you've got those two things all going on at once,
15:44you win the league.
15:45And you only concede 15 goals in the process.
15:47And then, of course, there's all the other stuff behind it.
15:50There's the psychology involved.
15:51There's what a great manager Mourinho was at the time.
15:54He instilled this underdog belief in such a massive club,
15:58which was really, really useful.
15:59They felt like it was them against the world in every single game.
16:03You read any player from this team's autobiography,
16:06and they either literally say or figuratively say,
16:09I would have died for that man.
16:10And they did for, like, two whole seasons.
16:14And that's why I think they're one of the most tactically interesting teams
16:17the Premier League has ever seen.
16:20Like, I don't remember a team coming along,
16:22playing a particular system and doing loads of different things
16:24for the very first time,
16:25and you're still seeing so many of them,
16:2810, 15, getting on for 20 years later.
16:31So, yes, if you enjoyed that, and I really, really did,
16:34please do consider subscribing to us here on 442.
16:37We're hoping to make these a sort of regular thing.
16:40You'll be sure of the David Beckham video we did
16:41off the back of his documentary.
16:42That was kind of us little dipping our toes in the water
16:45to see if anything based in the past would do quite well.
16:47And it did, so here we are.
16:49But if you've got any suggestions for the kind of teams
16:51we should look at in the future,
16:53like Man United's treble winners, Arsenal's Invincibles,
16:56Keegan's Entertainers, I'll definitely be doing that,
16:58please do drop them in the comments as well.
17:00And also, if you've got a better name than just Retro Tactics,
17:04put that in as well, because I'll probably use it.
17:06In the meantime, though, grab me on Twitter,
17:08because I just still call it that,
17:09at Adam Cleary, C-L-E-R-Y,
17:12Instagram, threads, like, I'm absolutely everywhere.
17:14442, all of our socials are in the corner of the video
17:17for your clicking pleasure at any time you wish.
17:19But until next time,
17:21I'm away to just listen to loads of
17:24mid-naughties landfill indie,
17:26because to me, that's what this team sounded like.
17:29Bye!
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