If you watch football and find yourself asking why: why that shape, why that press, why that decision cost them the game…this newsletter is for you.

Every week, I pick one game and take it apart. Not the highlights, but the tactical detail underneath it. The structures, the decisions and the moments that most people miss.

My name is Lucas. I’m a football coach working toward my UEFA B licence and I run The Tactics Academy - an education brand built on one belief: that understanding the game deeply makes you better at it, whether you’re a coach, a player, or just someone who loves football more than is probably healthy.

This isn’t punditry. There are no hot takes here. What you’ll get every week is one game, with key insights picked out, with an honest eye on what worked, what didn’t and what the tactical picture actually looked like beneath the surface.

One game. One breakdown. Every week.

Let’s get into it.

The international break hadn't been kind to Chelsea. They arrived at Stamford Bridge having lost four straight before it, conceding 12 goals in the process. Despite sitting 6th in the actual standings, they rank 4th in the Premier League xG table, a side with real quality that hasn't been converting it consistently. Adding to the selection headache, Enzo Fernández, who leads the entire Premier League in line-breaking passes this season, was left out after altercations with Rosenior.

City came in with momentum. Two cup wins on the bounce: 2-0 at Arsenal, 4-0 against Liverpool. Haaland, however, arrived in a lean spell, just three Premier League goals in 12 matches since Christmas, after a blistering 19 before it. And Chelsea haven't beaten City at home in the league since June 2020.

Chelsea (4-2-3-1): Sánchez; Gusto, Fofana, Hato, Cucurella; Santos, Caicedo; Estêvão, Palmer, Neto; Joao Pedro

Manchester City (4-2-3-1): Donnarumma; O'Reilly, Guéhi, Khusanov, Nunes; Rodri, Silva; Doku, Cherki, Semenyo; Haaland

The opening exchanges told an interesting story.

Manchester City were uncomfortable in their own build-up. They lacked urgency on the ball, struggled to find clean exits from their goalkeeper, and gave possession away on several occasions in their own half. For a Guardiola side, that’s unusual and it was a sign that Chelsea had prepared a specific plan to make life difficult early on.

On the other side, Chelsea looked purposeful when they had the ball. One movement stood out immediately, Cucurella drifting high and wide into the half space on the blindside of City’s central midfield line whenever a Chelsea centre-back had possession in the middle phase. It looked deliberate. It was worth watching.

Those two early observations, City’s build-up struggles and Cucurella’s movement, turned out to be the two threads that defined the entire game.

With City struggling to build, let’s look at what Chelsea were doing to cause that discomfort.

Chelsea pressed in a 4-2-3-1 mid-block and high press. Palmer was assigned to mark one of City’s pivots directly, with Caicedo stepping up to mark Bernardo Silva whenever he dropped deeper to receive. This gave Santos licence to sit as a covering presence, protecting against the long ball and the second phase, occasionally dropping into a back five to manage Haaland’s movement in behind.

It was organised, deliberate and it worked in the first half. City had no clear answers.

Now for the more interesting part. What Chelsea were trying to do in possession and how Cucurella’s movement fitted into it.

Chelsea built from the goalkeeper in a 3-2 shape. The goalkeeper split the two centre-backs, with two pivot players, Caicedo and Palmer, completing the structure. Cucurella was allowed to push high and wide from his left-back position during this phase.

City responded with the same passive high press we saw in the EFL Cup Final against Arsenal, a flat front four with a disciplined, compact shape. But Chelsea had a specific mechanism to break it.

Joao Pedro would drop into the same vertical channel as the ball-playing centre-back, dragging a City midfielder with him as pressure. With Cucurella already high and wide as a starting position, two things happened simultaneously: Cucurella lost his winger marker because the winger was now occupied elsewhere and City’s right-back couldn’t step to pick him up because he was already occupied marking Chelsea’s winger. Pedro was the decoy. Cucurella was the target. The full-back was the pass.

Chelsea broke City’s passive press on several occasions through this exact mechanism in the first half.

When Chelsea transitioned into the middle phase of the pitch, their structure shifted slightly but the logic remained the same.

The goalkeeper was replaced by Santos, who dropped in to split the two centre-backs. Palmer dropped from his advanced position into a pivot role alongside Caicedo. This is the moment Cucurella would drift into the left half space, arriving on the blindside of City’s midfield line with no direct marker.

Chelsea now had two clear options to progress.

Option 1 - Cucurella in the Left Half Space

Cucurella’s narrow drift into the half space forced a decision on City’s right centre-back. City’s right-back was already occupied with Neto out wide, meaning the only player who could step to Cucurella was the right centre-back. The moment he stepped, the channel behind him opened and Pedro and Neto had the movement and the pace to exploit it. Chelsea could hit that space early and directly.

Option 2 - Estevao’s Narrow Run from the Right

When the ball was with Chelsea’s right centre-back, Estevao would come inside narrowly, looking to bounce the ball back into one of the pivots, Palmer or Caicedo, who were already facing forward. The bounce created a yard of separation from their original markers, and from there Chelsea had the option to play forward to Pedro’s feet or again play over the top into the channel.

Chelsea looked genuinely dangerous through both options. They created openings, moved City around, and caused real problems in the first half. The issue was the final third, a lack of directness and clinical quality meant the scoresheet stayed blank.

City went in at half time 0–0. Guardiola had seen enough.

Pep Guardiola is at his best when he identifies a structural weakness and designs a solution around it at half time. This was one of those moments.

The weakness he spotted was Santos.

Chelsea’s structure relied on Santos dropping into the back line as a third centre-back, which worked well when defending deep and dealing with second balls. But it created a serious mismatch in more advanced areas around the box, because Santos was effectively being asked to perform the job of a centre-back in aerial duels in dangerous central areas. That’s not his game. Santos is a second-phase ball winner, aggressive, dynamic, effective on the floor. He is not an aerial centre-back.

City targeted him directly.

O’Reilly and Haaland, two players who love to occupy the six-yard box, took turns placing themselves onto Santos deliberately. Any quality delivery into the central area became a mismatch and Chelsea’s two natural centre-backs were not positioned close enough to cover the danger.

The first goal came from O’Reilly winning a straight header in that exact zone. The second came from a second-phase moment, the ball broke out from the box, created marking confusion on the re-entry, and found Guehi on the half turn in a dangerous position.

Two goals. Same structural problem. Same target. Same outcome.

Chelsea had the better of the first half. Their structure was intelligent, their build-up was creative and they caused City real problems through Cucurella’s half space movement and Pedro’s decoy runs. On another day, they score first and the game looks very different.

But the Santos problem was always there and once Guardiola identified it, Chelsea had no answer. What made it worse was that Chelsea should have spotted the danger after the first goal and adjusted. They didn’t. The second goal arrived from an almost identical situation.

Santos dropping into the back line is a creative structural solution from Maresca. But using him as an aerial centre-back against Haaland and O’Reilly at Stamford Bridge was a mismatch City were always going to exploit.

Guardiola found the weakness. He went straight at it. And Chelsea paid the price for not adapting when they had the chance.

One game. One breakdown. Every week.

If you found this useful, share it with a coach or player who thinks about football the way you do. And if you want to go deeper on tactical analysis and development, The Tactics Academy has you covered, link in my social profiles.

Issue #002 Lucas - Coach | Analyst | Founder