Match date: 26 February 2014

Galatasaray effectively ended their Champions League campaign in the first leg of last year’s competition, losing to Real Madrid 3-0, but in their home tie they beat Madrid 3-2. Going into the match against another Mourinho led side, Galatasaray and first year manager, Roberto Mancini, would be hoping for a performance more in line with their second leg performance last year.

As he was at Manchester City, Roberto Mancini is a little unpredictable in how he will set his sides out in Europe. So far this season, as he did at Manchester City against Ajax, Mancini experimented with three at the back and has tinkered with the midfield shape throughout when he has played with four at the back.

Mourinho started his second stint at Chelsea with a cautious approach, but over the last few weeks, the team has started to peak and lead the Premier League. They look the most threatening when counter attacking, relying on the pace and dribbling abilities of Eden Hazard and Willian to put pressure on opposition defenders.

Mancini’s Initial Setup Allows Chelsea to Dominate Early

The opening half hour saw Chelsea dominating the match, not necessarily due to any tactical battle won by Mourinho, but rather the poor tactical decisions made by Roberto Mancini. Throughout the season, Chelsea have looked to counter and have had some problems with this when there was a more physical holding midfielder in front of the back four of the opposition, much like Yaya Toure’s presence in Manchester City’s win over Chelsea in the FA Cup a few weeks ago. Mancini, however, opted to play a fairly rigid 4-4-2 in the first half, with Drogba and Yilmaz offering very little pressure on the Chelsea defense, which made it easy for Lampard and Ramires to get on the ball and offer passes going forward. More significantly though was the indecision by Melo and Inan, the two central midfielders, with Sneijder starting on the left side. The problem was that Melo and Inan looked to take up the same positions and did not look to have clear defensive instructions when Chelsea had the ball. Below, you can see neither Melo or Inan offering a supporting option for the player on the ball.

When Galatasaray were in possession of the ball, both dropped deep to try to get the ball off of the centre backs. This made it very hard for Galatasaray to link up play without the forwards and made it so that Drogba had to to drop very deep from his centre forward position to get the ball and initiate attacks. In the first half, Sneijder mostly stayed in the wide left area of the pitch and so Galatasaray lacked creativity, or outlet, in the middle of the field to help link the play.

More troubling for Galatasaray was when Chelsea were in possession. Inan and Melo seemed to not know when to put pressure on the Chelsea midfielders which allowed them, Lampard in particular, to play simple balls behind Galatasaray’s high defensive line for Torres and Hazard to run onto. When Melo and Inan did try to add pressure higher up the pitch, Chelsea were able to play on the counter and expose the lack of pace in Galatasaray’s back line.

Galatasaray’s High Line, Mancini’s Change

It was immediately evident that Galatasaray’s high line was going to be an issue. One of the fundamentals of tactics is that if a team plays a high line, they must also apply pressure on the opposition’s middle. Without pressure, they allow the midfielders time to pick out passes behind the back line. This was exactly the case in the opening stages of the match. Melo and Inan sat too deep when the likes of Lampard had the ball, and Torres was able to make simple runs in behind, knowing that he’d be found by a ball over the top.

After the first 30 minutes, Mancini saw that his initial plans were not successful and so he brought on Kurtulus for Hajrovic and changed Galatasaray’s shape from a 4-4-2 to a 4-1-4-1, with Kurtulus sitting in front of the back four with Melo and Inan in front of him. This allowed two things to happen which allowed Galatasaray to get back into the match from a defensive perspective. First, it allowed Galatasaray to have three players in midfield so that were at least even with Chelsea in terms of numbers and allowed them to match up. Inan and Melo were now able to get forward and press Lampard and Ramires when they had the ball so that the two did not have the time to pick out passes to Torres running in behind the Galatasaray defense.

The second change that the 4-1-4-1 allowed was the Galatasaray back line to drop slightly deeper. The initial idea from Mancini was to allow his defenders to stay tight to the Chelsea attackers so that they couldn’t receive the ball, turn into space, and dribble at the defenders. Mourinho has said in the past that the space between the lines is the most important and so Mancini tried to make sure that his side controlled that space. It didn’t work, but the introduction of Kurtulus, and the switch to a 4-1-4-1, allowed the substitute to defended the area in front of the back four and afforded the defenders the luxury of dropping deeper to keep Torres under a bit more control due to their lack of pace.

The introduction of Kurtulus also made it easier for Galatasaray to defend against Chelsea’s counter attacks. After the match, Mancini noted the need for his side to have the extra midfielder as Chelsea looked to break on every chance and Kurtulus did a good job and stopping Chelsea’s quick breaks. Below, you can see that he made a few tackles high up the pitch and mostly won the ball back around midfield rather than closer to Galatasaray’s penalty area as his side grew into the game and Chelsea relied more on the counter.

Chelsea Look to Exploit High Full Backs

Last year, under Terim, Galatasaray used both Eboue and Reira at full back, neither of whom are particularly know for their defensive abilities. Reira may not be used as frequently under Mancini, but Telles is a young, attacking full back. Throughout the match, Eboue and Telles looked to get forward as much as possible and it allowed a good amount of space in the wide areas for Chelsea to exploit. Both Hazard and Schürrle enjoyed the space and were able to get in behind their full backs on a number of occasions. The most obvious example of this was Chelsea’s goal. Hazard and Schürrle were on the same side, which was not common in the match, but they were able to break quickly after Azpilicueta easily won the ball off of Eboue and made a good overlapping run to provide the assist to Torres.

Second Half Changes

Mancini took Balta off at half time after the centre back had an extremely poor first half against Torres. After the Galatasaray scored the equaliser from a corner kick won by Drogba, Mourinho made a significant change to the match, taking off Schürrle and bringing on John Obi Mikel, changing Chelsea’s shape to a 4-1-4-1 as well with Mikel sitting behind Lampard and Ramires. Willian took up the position on the right, but as in many matches throughout the season, the two Brasilians interchanged their positions. Immediately after this change, Eto’o entered the game for Torres and late in stoppage time, Oscar came on for Hazard.

Following Chelsea’s change to a 4-1-4-1, the match settled into two sides just looking to keep possession, with Galatasaray looking to push on more often, but Drogba became an increasingly isolated figure. Mancini made his final change in the 80th minute, bringing on Bulut for Drogba.

Conclusion

Despite letting in an away goal, Galatasaray will certainly be the happier of the two sides as the opening 30 minutes could have seen Chelsea put the tie out of reach before Mancini brought on Kurtulus. Mancini’s initial approach was questionable and it did not pay off, forcing the Italian to make a change far earlier than he would have liked.

The second tie will certainly be more of the same from Chelsea; control the space in which Galatasaray can play and then look to exploit them, especially the space left by the full backs, on the counter attack.