Lampard’s ‘Basketball’ Tactics Are A Sign Chelsea Haven’t Got The Balance Right Between Chaos And Order

Lampard’s ‘Basketball’ Tactics Are A Sign Chelsea Haven’t Got The Balance Right Between Chaos And Order

Control is a key element of how teams like Manchester City manage to consistently win trophies and titles. For manager Pep Guardiola, possession is crucial to controlling the game. Without it, you lose the ability to decide the outcome of the match.

Last year, Maurizio Sarri had a similar philosophy to Guardiola. In the Italian’s system, Jorginho was the key conductor of the team, spraying the ball to his teammates with the likes Mateo Kovacic and N’Golo Kante being used as policeman higher up, both to protect the playmaker from being pressed, but also capable of winning the ball back themselves higher up the pitch.

Under Frank Lampard, that philosophy has been turned on its head. The pressing remains firmly in place, but what it is used for has changed. The focus is now on quick transitions/counter-attacks rather than recovering possession.

This is counter-pressing or gegenpressing much more in the style of Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool. The best description I’ve heard for this style is ‘controlled chaos’. You are doing everything at speed to press your opponents and exploiting them when they are at their most vulnerable to score goals.

When it works, it leads to a number of counter-attacking opportunities, as it did against both Manchester United and Liverpool. When it doesn’t work, as Jamie Carragher correctly pointed out, it leads to a game of basketball:

“It’s like watching a basketball game. The idea of Frank is spot on, it’s the way top sides, top managers want to play. People talk about them being naive and getting caught on the counter-attack, they’ve got no organisation in possession.”

Especially against a team like Leicester, it leads to a lack of organisation and composure. After the match, Kurt Zouma said they didn’t press as much because of tiredness, but in fact, the numbers don’t bear that out at all.

Passes per defensive action (PPDA) signifies the number of passes a team allows before pressing the opposition for the ball. The lower the number, the higher the pressing.

Against Leicester, Chelsea’s PPDA was 9.03. Against Liverpool, it was 11.88. The big difference is the Foxes were better at pressing than the Reds with a PPDA of 6.14. These two high pressing teams led to a match full of chaos which we wouldn’t have seen under Sarri.

It is certainly more exciting to watch, and against the right opponents, it can be a very worthwhile tactical ploy. But you have to be smart as to when to use it. With more control, Chelsea would have offered up fewer chances to Leicester.

Finding that balance between chaos and order in upcoming matches will be crucial for Lampard. It is still early days so there will be teething problems, but it is vital that he gets this right sooner rather than later.

David Tully

David Tully

David has worked as a football reporter for the last fifteen years. Having started as an intern at Snack Media, he then went on to become a freelancer, working on various different sites. At the start of 2023, he took up his current role as content writer for National World's Football News Network.