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 of Retro Tactics.
00:16We've been wanting to do something like this for a little while and at the time of recording it's
00:21still somehow an international break, nothing else is going on so we thought why not. So this,
00:27this right here is Jose Mourinho's Chelsea from about 2004 to 2006. It is the most defensively
00:36solid, mathematically speaking, team the Premier League has ever seen. It won back-to-back
00:41championships, it won FA Cups, it won League Cups, it made the club's first ever serious forays
00:46into the latter stages of the Champions League. It is probably the most tactively innovative team
00:53the Premier League had ever seen. Alright, so a little bit of background, Chelsea obviously
00:58already had money by the time Mourinho had come in, Ranieri had finished second and he'd also got
01:03to the semi-finals of the Champions League the season before but they just, they weren't quite
01:07cemented as one of the top, top clubs in the division. It was all very new to them but then
01:12as everybody knows, Jose Mourinho entered the fray and just honestly pretty much overnight
01:17transformed the club to having the sort of stature that it still has today. To be one of the big four
01:23in the Premier League, to be one of the top six, all these terms, they didn't really exist until then
01:28but 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
01:46the Premier League several things it had never seen before and it took them two full seasons to work
01:53out how to do anything with it. Now obviously across two seasons loads of players come in and out, loads of
01:58players play very important roles even within the same system. So we've got it like this but it could
02:02just as easily be Damien Duff in either of these wide positions. Essien and Thiago, they were both
02:08really important as that other eight alongside Frank Lampard. Wayne Bridge and William Gallas, they both
02:13had about a season as the first choice left back in this system and you could, people forget, but you
02:18could have Ida Goodjohnson in there instead of Didier Drogba. In fact, Ida Goodjohnson is a player we're going
02:25to talk about more in a little bit. But the key to all this really, the man who literally invented
02:31a position for himself based on this team is Claude McAlealy. He sat in this sitting number
02:38six role at the base of a 4-3-3, something you see all the time now but back then was just mind
02:45blowing to English teams. And that's because, believe it or not, given the name of this YouTube
02:49channel and the magazine it produces content for, this country was really obsessed with 4-4-2 back
02:57then. Like some teams would play it as a diamond, some players would have a holding midfielder and
03:00attacking midfielder, some players would have a 4-4-1-1 or occasionally you might even see a back
03:06three every now and then. But by and large, in the Premier League, most weeks, most teams had some
03:12kind of 4-4-2. And what that meant was they always had two central midfielders. And we could do a
03:19whole other video on why that was but it's fairly common sense. It gives you great balance across the
03:23pitch. You have two players in pretty much every single position. You've got two players on the
03:27flanks, you've got two players in central defence, you've got two players in the middle of the pitch,
03:31you've got two players up front. There are twos everywhere so you're never lopsided and it's not
03:35easy to break you down. And even in Mourinho's own words, the whole reason he played this system was
03:40because the 4-4-2 was so popular in the Premier League. He's literally quoted as saying,
03:45if I have a triangle in midfield, I always have an advantage against a pure 4-4-2 where the central
03:51midfielders are side by side. And that's precisely what Makaleli was for. Petr Cech, one of the greatest
03:56goalkeepers in the history of the Premier League, couldn't kick, couldn't really distribute the ball
04:00well. That's not what the game was about then. There was no onus on the goalkeeper to be able to find
04:04players across the pitch with his kicking. So when Chelsea wanted to play out from the back, which they had to
04:09against most teams who were sitting off them, the centre-backs would then, they would split a little
04:13bit, Terry and Carvalho. The full-backs would push slightly further up and Makaleli would drop
04:17to about here. And 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. You tended to at most
04:29have 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,
04:39do all the conventional things. And 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
04:49caught up with him and then surpassed him during his career. But at this point in 0-4, 0-5, 0-6,
04:55he was so far ahead of the curve in what he could do in possession. Both he and Carvalho would receive
05:00the ball in this sort of area. And if the opposition sat off them, they would be free to carry this
05:05forward up the pitch and help the rest of the team advance. But if the opposition didn't sit
05:10off them and try to challenge them for that ball, then it would almost always go into
05:13McAuley and that's when they would have problems. And this is the whole idea with having three players
05:18in central midfield because it gives you five players in this area. So if you imagine this
05:23is some other team, they're two centre-forwards, they've gone and closed down Terry and Carvalho
05:27so they can't play the ball forward. That leaves you with two central midfielders marking Chelsea's
05:33other two central midfielders. Now assuming either Terry, Carvalho or Cech can then get that ball into
05:38McAuley, what do you do? These two don't really want to start chasing back because that's no way
05:43to defend. McAuley's just free to go through when you're running after him. And if one of these two
05:47then decide to move forwards, well now you've got a free man in central midfield. Pretty much one of
05:52the few places on the pitch you can't ever afford to leave a spare man. All right, okay,
05:57so maybe what you do is you play like a 4-4-1-1 instead then. So you can put a player in this
06:01pocket here to stop McAuley getting on the ball. All right, you've kind of matched them up but now
06:05you can't really defend against Terry and Carvalho, two ball-playing centre-backs who
06:11will very happily then just find players further up the pitch. Oh but wait, hang on, you've got
06:15wingers, haven't you? And they're kind of in this area of the pitch. So maybe what you do is you say
06:20one of your midfielders can push onto McAuley when he gets onto the ball but one of your wide men,
06:24he's got to then tuck inside to mark the other central midfielder thus not leaving you exposed.
06:30That'll work, won't it? Well 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 but prior to
06:43Mourinho coming into the Premier League, full-backs as standard virtually did no attacking. They were
06:49still seen as defenders. Like yes, there were some that were ahead of their time and would do this job
06:53in certain teams but it wasn't really seen as part of their job spec to get down the line and get up
06:59the pitch. But in this Mourinho side, that's what he instructed them to do. He wanted them to physically
07:03carry the ball up the wing and on occasion provide the width for sort of an attacking front five. And
07:09why would you have them provide the wing though when you've got these two excellent wide attackers
07:13in a 4-3-3? Surely they should be nice and wide and yes, they were and part of their job was to get
07:19to the byline like traditional wingers were doing and to put crosses onto Drogba's head but also
07:24Mourinho would quite often invert his wingers. He would switch them over mid-game. He would switch
07:28them over several times in the same game and if you found yourself on the side where you weren't on
07:33your strong foot, your job was to then come inside and effectively play along the centre forward. It was
07:39inverted wingers before inverted wingers were really a thing. And if you can picture a winger
07:43inverting on this side, then the fullback making the run to provide the width there and then one of
07:48the number eights, usually Frank Lampard arriving late to support the centre forward, you've got this
07:53really dangerous attacking front five that can be formed several different ways on different sides
07:59of the pitch and is virtually impossible to track the runs of. The only difference between this sort
08:04of front five and the kind of front five that Pep does now is that rather than the defenders
08:07shuffling around into a back three, you'd then have McAlealy moving across into the space the fullback
08:13vacated to always keep that steady four there. And as ridiculous as it looks, Chelsea would quite
08:19often end up in situations where they still had a fullback four and then one player either Thiago or
08:25Essien sort of patrolling this space and then just five attackers. And this is why it like genuinely
08:31bugs me when I hear this Chelsea team being referred to as like a defensive, stable, quite boring
08:37outfit. Like yes, they only conceded 15 goals and that's incredible, but that was mostly because
08:43they dominated the ball so much, not because they were negative. They scored something like
08:4774, 75 goals that season. They were second only behind Arsenal. Like they were a forward-thinking
08:53attacking side. They created loads of chances. But the reason this was so hard to defend against
08:58though is we have sort of formed this front five using the left-hand side of the pitch, right? So
09:03we've got McAlealy here, he's shuffled across, but that's because the fullback went up that way and that
09:08winger inverted and then that number eight, etc, etc. But they would do that on the opposite side
09:13just as freely. Like Mourinho didn't play with two overlapping fullbacks and two inverted wingers.
09:20He would only play with one at a time. But during the course of the game, they would change which side
09:26that was happening from. So just imagine it again over on this side this time. The winger he inverts
09:30comes across to about here. That fullback then gets all the way up and provides a width. This number
09:35eight now gets into the front five. McAlealy then sweeps across to the right-hand side to cover that
09:39space and you've got the exact same shape all over again. So long story short here with McAlealy
09:45as the pivot in the base of a three and fullback that 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 and two separate
09:54number eights who were really happy getting up front with Drogba. Chelsea in their build-up phase
09:59when they were creating attacks could either go through the middle because they had numerical
10:04superiority or they could go down the flanks where they could hurt you in so many different ways.
10:11And again, I'll just keep saying this. Ball playing centre-backs, an overlapping fullback,
10:16inverting wingers and three players in midfield. You just see that every single game now. But back
10:22in 04, my friends, nobody had a f***ing clue what was going on. But for all the innovating Jose
10:30Mourinho did, for all the things you'd never seen before, there was one thing Chelsea were absolutely
10:35brilliant at, which was quintessentially British. And that was when the situation called for it,
10:41they could go route one better than anyone in the league. Check to Drogba was a weapon all its own.
10:49And if you've been sitting there doing the maths, counting on your fingers, thinking, hang on,
10:53if they've got numerical superiority in this part of the pitch, surely that only happens because
10:58they've got numerical unsuperiority, which is probably a word, in that area of a pitch. Because
11:04if they were playing 4-4-2, they'd have two wingers and two strikers. So that's four players and the
11:09defence has got four players in it. So now, now you're at a disadvantage. Surely that's where that
11:14should be a problem. But no, my friends, because that is the beauty of Didier Drogba.
11:19He got a lot of criticism in his first two seasons of Chelsea because he wasn't a prolific goal
11:25scorer. He had arrived at a high reputation for a high fete, supposedly the most ambitious club in
11:30the land, and he wasn't bagging them in for fun every single game. But that is not what made Drogba
11:36a world-class player in this team. It was his ability to bully defenders, to bring his teammates
11:44into play. Chelsea 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. Now, as we've said back then,
11:54pretty much every team, not all, but pretty much every single team had a back four. So you can
11:58visualise it here. It's easy to see. They are man for man in the wide areas, and theoretically,
12:03they've got an advantage over Drogba. Frank Lampard's main job in this Chelsea side was to be arriving
12:08late into the box to either get on the end of crosses or to offer a pullback option to be an
12:13unmarked threat. And you can see, theoretically, that's really easy. One defender, Mark Strogba,
12:18and one watches for Lampard's run. So how then, how did Lampard score so many goals in this team?
12:26But it's a combination of two things. First of all, that Frank Lampard was undeniably the best
12:31player in the world at the time for timing a late run into the box. It was just really hard to defend
12:37against anyway, but also because this chap here wasn't watching for Frank Lampard. This chap here
12:43was helping to mark Drogba. So often in games, Drogba would be able to physically tie up both
12:49centre-backs, swapping between which one was marking him, the other never feeling totally
12:53confident in passing him on or letting him go. And that would always create loads of room
12:58for Lampard to get in. And it wasn't just Lampard either, by the way. When you've got wide players who
13:03are looking to invert, and you've got a centre-back who's been drawn away from that area,
13:06because they're watching Drogba and a full-back who doesn't really want to get dragged in the
13:10cover, then there's a whole area for them to play in. He was a space-creating machine.
13:15And in even more Mike Bassett terms than that, he was always an option against a high defensive
13:20line to just win a flick on and allow either of the wide players or Lampard to run beyond him
13:25into that space. Like 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. Now you know when you go to a nice hotel and they
13:35give you a continental breakfast and it's all like nice little pastries and some jams and stuff and
13:40some little cooked meats, right? Imagine that, just slab a load of peas pudding on it, right?
13:44That was Drogba in this system. Beautiful. The thing is, it wasn't always Drogba, right? And the
13:49reason at the start of the video I said we were going to come back to Ida Gudjonsson is because
13:53he's very much like the forgotten player of this team. Like maybe not to Chelsea fans, maybe you all
13:59remember the contribution he had to this and how important he was to this Mourinho system. But I think if you
14:03asked any other fan from any other club to like rattle off who made the most appearances for Chelsea
14:08in Mourinho's first season, I don't think any of them, any of them would guess Gudjonsson. And he
14:14did. He started 30 Premier League games in Mourinho's first season. In fact, in total appearances, when you
14:20include substitutes, he was the second most used player for Mourinho that year. Genuinely. Because
14:25while he did play up top instead of Drogba in a number of games, he also played as the other eight in the
14:31midfield alongside Frank Lampard. And he also occasionally played out wide when he was useful
14:36in that sort of context. But also, this is the system Mourinho used to control games in a league
14:42that everybody played 4-4-2. Sometimes he didn't want to control the game. Sometimes he would genuinely,
14:49brace yourself for this, just play
14:51a 4-4-2.
14:56McAlealy would slot in alongside Lampard in the centre of midfield to allow Lampard to use his, frankly,
15:01very underrated passing range and just general midfield busybody activities, which you just hardly ever saw at
15:07Chelsea, but he could definitely do it. The two wide attackers, they had played at wingers at their previous
15:12clubs. It was the traditional role for their sort of players back then. And then just two centre forwards.
15:17They would occasionally just line up like this. I mean, not against the big sides and certainly not often,
15:22but the reason Ida Gajonsson started 30 Premier League games and Drogba still started 18 was because
15:27this was an option. He was very versus Highland, could do loads of different things, but this also
15:32was something they could just do. This 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. And when you've got those
15:42two things all going on at once, you win the league and you only concede 15 goals in the process.
15:47And then of course, there's all the other stuff behind it. There's a psychology involved. There's
15:51what a great manager Mourinho was at the time. Like he instilled this underdog belief in such a massive
15:58club, which was really, really useful. They felt like it was them against the world in every single
16:02game. You read any player from this team's autobiography and they either literally say or
16:07figuratively say, I would have died for that man. And they did for like two whole seasons. And that's
16:14why I think they're one of the most tactically interesting teams the Premier League has ever
16:19seen. Like I don't remember a team coming along, playing a particular system and doing loads of
16:23different things for the very first time. And you still seeing so many of them, 10, 15, getting on
16:30for 20 years later. So yes, if you enjoyed that, and I really, really did, please do consider
16:35subscribing to us here on 442. We're hoping to make these a sort of regular thing. If you saw the
16:40David Beckham video we did off the back of his documentary, that was kind of us little dipping
16:44our toes in the water to see if anything based in the past would do quite well. And it did. So
16:48here we are. But if you've got any suggestions for the kind of teams we should look at in the future,
16:53like Man United's treble winners, Arsenal's invincibles, Keegan's entertainers, I'll definitely
16:57be doing that. Please do drop them in the comments as well. And also, if you've got a better name than
17:02just Retro Tactics, put that in as well, because I'll probably use it. In the meantime, though,
17:07grab me on Twitter, because I just still call it that, at Adam Cleary, C-L-E-R-Y, Instagram
17:12threads, like I'm absolutely everywhere. 442, all of our socials are in the corner of the
17:17video for your clicking pleasure at any time you wish. But until next time, I'm away to
17:22just listen to loads of mid-naughties landfill indie, because to me, that's what this team sounded
17:28like. Bye!