Match date: 8 April 2014

Paris Saint Germain won the first leg of the tie, 3-1, but with Chelsea’s away goal, there were memories of 2012 when Chelsea’s were able to turn a two goal deficit around against Napoli. PSG are arguably a better side than that Napoli team, but it shows that Chelsea do have the ability.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic was unfit for the match, having hurt his hamstring in last week’s match, and so Edinson Cavani was played in the central forward role by Laurent Blanc with Lucas Moura coming into the side on the right, having impressed last week when coming on.

Mourinho opted to play a true striker for this leg, with Samuel Eto’o in for Andre Schürrle. With Ramires being suspended, Frank Lampard played alongside David Luiz as the two holding midfielders in an otherwise unchanged Chelsea XI.

PSG Press, Then Sit Deep

Chelsea were surprised by PSG’s pressing early on as the London side were slow in possession and failed to really create anything. Mourinho would have certainly thought that with their two goal lead and Chelsea’s tendencies to play good counter-attacking football that PSG would sit deep and just look to keep Chelsea at bay, but in the opening stages of the match, PSG looked to force Chelsea and they weren’t ready for it.

However, PSG’s pressing didn’t last long and they began to comfortably drop into a mid and low block as Chelsea’s passing continued to be too slow to break the French side now. With PSG’s defensive shape, they allowed Chelsea to have the ball comfortably in midfield and build up play which did not aid Chelsea’s play with David Luiz and Frank Lampard seeing a lot of the ball. Neither are particularly creative playmakers. Lampard has always been known for late runs into the penalty area rather than defense splitting passes and David Luiz is an adventurous centre back that occasionally contributes goals with his forward runs, but also is not a player really capable of breaking down a compact defensive shape with his passing. As a result, many of their passes into the final third were unsuccessful and most of their passes were into the wide areas where Lavezzi and Lucas were sometimes exposed.

Prior to their first goal, Chelsea struggled to get shots off or created chances within the Paris Saint Germain penalty area. Three of their five chances created before the goal were outside of the penalty area, credit to PSG’s deep, compact defensive shape. The goal came from a throw-in, with David Luiz able to get a flick-on from a free header and Schürrle’s quick reaction and shot.

Mourinho’s First Planned Change

Obviously Eden Hazard had to come off within the first 20 minutes of the match, replaced by Schürrle, but Mourinho clearly had a plan for the second half if Chelsea found themselves in need of a goal. The first change was to bring on Demba Ba for Frank Lampard, who didn’t have a very influential part to play in the match. As mentioned above, with PSG defending in a low block, Lampard’s passing was ineffective and redundant, especially with David Luiz on the pitch and the Brasilian a better option to disrupt PSG’s attempts to counter-attack.

Ba played through the centre of the attack, with Samuel Eto’o moved to to the left and Oscar played deeper, and within the first minute of Ba being on the pitch, it was clear that his introduction was made so that Chelsea could play more direct, long balls is way. Ba’s second flick found Schürrle coming in from the right and the German was able to get a shot off which Sirigu saved.

Of course, Ba got his goal from a deflected shot falling in front of him as he got in front of Maxwell.

Mourinho’s Second Planned Change, Reaction to Goal

Torres came on for Oscar, who had started playing deeper after Ba replaced Lampard. The shape was already close to a 4-3-3 with Ba through the middle, Eto’o on the right, and Schürrle on the left. With Torres’ introduction, Schürrle moved next to Willian, in front of David Luiz. While Torres didn’t get involved in the play much, he only received and passed the ball one time each.

Above are the average positions of both sides between the 75th and 90th minute, Chelsea on the left and PSG on the right. After the goal, Mourinho sprinted down the touchline to celebrate, but once he got there he sought out Torres, Eto’o, Ba, and Schürrle to give them instructions about how to close the game out, something that Blanc tried to do minutes earlier by introducing Marquinhos for Lucas to give PSG another centre back, but this only invited more Chelsea pressure.

Conclusion

Laurent Blanc’s changes were not as calculated as Mourinho’s, but were instead reactionary, bringing on Marquinhos as Mourinho brought on three strikers meant Blanc wanted his team to absorb the pressure, but Mourinho’s players knew what they were doing as he said in his post-match conference, “We tried different formations in training so the players knew what to do in each situation. Demba Ba has come up with an important goal for us. We deserved to go through.”

Whether they deserved to go through based on their first leg performance is a different story, but on the night, Chelsea, and Mourinho, certainly deserve to be in the semi-finals on the Champions League.

Cavani had his chance to shine in the absence of Ibrahimovic, playing in the number 9 role, but he was wasteful, squandering a very good chance in the 77th minute that could have seen Chelsea needing two more goals instead of one.