Following a dominant display against winless Wolverhampton Wanderers last week, Sunderland looked to keep their momentum going and travelled down to the capital in what was their first return to Stamford Bridge since the fateful final game of their last stint in the top flight, ending in May 2017. Chelsea came off the back of a midweek drubbing of Ajax in the Champions League, with the hosts scoring five on home turf.
Regis Le Bris was able to pit his wits against one of the many elite coaches in the Premier
League and, through some clever planning and creative tactical shifts, was able to not only come away from Stamford Bridge with something to show for it, but also take a win back to Wearside. How did Le Bris utilise a dynamic shape to secure all three points on the road at the Bridge?
Sunderland Line-Up
Sunderland’s defence is feeling a bit like a revolving door at the moment, with every return from injury/suspension we seem to suffer another, therefore Le Bris made two changes from the side that faced Wolves the week before. One was enforced, as Omar Alderete was required to sit out under the concussion protocol, while Reinildo stepped in to take his place following the end of his red card suspension. Elsewhere Chris Rigg made way for Lusharel Geertruida to make his first start following a string of cameo appearances for Sunderland – and while it was widely assumed Geertruida would swap with Rigg, it was in fact Trai Hume who moved into a more advanced role for this one.
While on paper it looked like a straightforward back five, Sunderland showed plenty of flexibility, transitioning between 5-4-1 & 4-3-3. In possession, Trai Hume moved into a midfield role and inverted alongside Granit Xhaka and Noah Sadiki; however, when out of possession, Hume moved into right wing-back and formed a back five when Sunderland needed to hold shape.
Utilising this tactical flexibility meant that Hume had licence to break quickly and advance into space on the ball – almost mirroring what Chelsea do on the opposite flank with Reece James. This provided an extra body in midfield to create centralised overloads and formulate those triangles that remain core to Regis Le Bris’ philosophy of attacking with direct patterns of play.
Enzo Le Fée once again operated off the left and was also able to tuck in and form a tight midfield block off the ball, but was comfortable at taking up positions in the half spaces of the left channel more centrally when in possession, allowing Reinildo to overlap and provide width down the left flank in attack.
Opposition Line-Up
Enzo Maresca rested most of his starters during the midweek game against Ajax so despite making over half a dozen changes in midweek, only three players came in from their last Premier League outing against Nottingham Forest. The £200m midfield pairing of Enzo Fernandes and Moises Caicedo slotted back into their usual midfield roles, and former Sunderland cult hero Marc Guiu led the line, allowing Joao Pedro to drop back into his preferred position just behind the striker.
Utilising a fairly traditional 4-2-3-1 shape in possession, Reece James was given licence to invert into midfield while both Garnacho and Pedro Neto looked to hold width and isolate themselves 1v1 against Sunderland’s fullbacks Reinildo and Mukiele (which became Hume following Sunderland’s ability to drop into their more compact defensive shape).
Chelsea look to keep possession under Maresca and utilise midfield overloads, adding James as an extra midfielder to retain the ball in the middle of the park. By forming a five-man midfield, they’re often able to counter-press opponents well, and prevent them from advancing when Chelsea loses the ball in the build-up.
Starting with intent
Despite the external narrative suggesting this was to be a routine win for the hosts, we went into this one level on points with Chelsea and certainly didn’t look afraid in the opening exchanges. Having learned from our somewhat slow starts in games last season, Le Bris has openly spoken about approaching the ‘Game State’ in several smaller periods, and it’s becoming a trend for us this season.
Before we’d even hit five minutes on the clock, Traoré flashed a good ball across the box, Ballard had a header saved, and Isidor had a great move blocked, all while Xhaka led the press deep inside the Chelsea half. Ultimately, with great intent often comes larger risk – and given Sunderland’s expansive starting territory in the build-up to Chelsea’s opener goal, we were ultimately undone.
However this set the tone for the remainder of the game.
As noted above, Hume was deployed in a midfield/wingback hybrid role therefore his starting position was much higher than expected when the ball was turned over, leaving Mukiele isolated 1v1 against Garnacho for one of only a few times during the afternoon which he made us pay and scored the opener.
Nordi’s missile throws
Nordi Mukiele and Brentford’s Michael Kayode have become the flagships of ‘Premium Barclays’ by weaponising long throws this season – and after Enzo Maresca’s comments midweek around Chelsea’s inability to deal with them effectively, it was only a matter of time before Sunderland caused the home team some issues looking for a quick response. With the average number of long throws taken per game up from 1.52 to 3.85 since last year, Mukiele has now surpassed the half century mark for long throws already this season just showing how important they are in creating chaos in opposition penalty areas.
Credit to Bertrand Traoré for his anticipation of the second ball as his shot, while only producing an xG of 0.09 it looked to be arrowing into the bottom corner only to hit Joao Pedro, Reinildo was however on hand to divert the ball to Isidor who flicked it in and drew Sunderland back level.
Sunderland’s dynamic shape
With a traditional 4-3-3/5-4-1 system, zonal defending remains a core aspect of how teams organise their defensive shape when out of possession. However, given Sunderland’s hybrid shape, Lusharel Geertruida was given licence to man-mark Joao Pedro and often aggressively pressed from his defensive line to apply pressure to the Chelsea forward during his attempts to drop deep and link up the play.
In doing this, Mukiele would shuffle inside with Ballard to fill the space vacated by Geertruida and then trigger a further press from Sunderland’s midfield in order to trap Chelsea from springing passes between Sunderland’s midfield and defensive lines. By funnelling Chelsea into bodies via the fantastic use of Sadiki and Xhaka marshalling the direction of play, Sunderland were able to shepherd the ball down Chelsea’s right allowing Reinildo to mop up. On his return he kept Pedro Neto quiet all afternoon by winning 100% of his Aerial Duels paired with 5/9 of his Ground Duels during the match.
Xhaka led the press in midfield, and our captain once again stole the show. With a fantastic 6/7 ground duels won and 100% aerially the Swiss talisman set the tone for the midfield and didn’t stop hounding whenever Chelsea showed signs of complacency. While Noah Sadiki’s ground coverage is more noticeable, both midfielders now rank for the most distances covered for a partnership in the league this season as per the graphic below produced by BBC Sport and Opta.
Compacting shape
Despite the possession being strongly in Chelsea’s favour, due to the compact shape Sunderland adopted throughout this one they weren’t really able to threaten Sunderland’s goal at all during the second half, with only six touches inside of Sunderland’s penalty area. The graphic below showcases our average positions throughout the match and very much shows that despite Hume’s tendency to drop into his defensive line at times, he was still very much patrolling as a midfielder for large portions of the game.
By pressing as a unit and almost acting like players were holding hands in a rigid line, Chelsea weren’t afforded any gaps in behind or between Sunderland’s shape and resulted in all the play occurring in front of Sunderland. A willingness to jump out and attack together meant that Sunderland were still able to break with speed and intricate passing due to the compact nature of the midfield, leaving space for quick interchanges of passes in transition.
Noah Sadiki won 5/6 of his duels with a 90% pass accuracy, and with only 1/1 completed long balls showcased that Sunderland were looking to play short and fast when they had the chance to counter. That being said, Chelsea fans saw first-hand the tireless work Sadiki puts in and resembles a certain French midfielder formerly of said parish. Completing four recoveries, two interceptions and two tackles, Sadiki was once again at the heart of everything Sunderland did off the ball.
Poetry in Motion
If there ever was an example of how Regis Le Bris described playing in transition when he first joined the club in 2024, Chemsdine Talbi’s winning goal personified that perfectly. With minutes left on the clock, Sunderland were able to cover the length of the pitch with two passes, six touches and all in less than 10 seconds.
Geertruida’s long ball was perfectly played into the channel, Brian Brobbey’s direct strength and dominant hold-up play occupied the Chelsea defenders, and Talbi’s exquisite finish wrapped up the points in what can only be described as true Regis Le Bris fashion. Fast, direct, and transitional football is what Le Bris described during his first few months at the club, and we saw that in full display here.
Up next
With a Monday Night football affair described as the ‘Jordan Pickford Derby’ by Peter Drury on the horizon against Everton next week, Le Bris will be utilising this week of recovery to work on yet more set piece dominance as exposed by Spurs in their recent trip to the Hill Dickinson stadium. With another win on the road achieved, Le Bris has afforded himself some breathing room ahead of the Arsenal game the following week and will be looking to capitalise on our home form against an Everton side who are prone to shipping goals this season.
In an atmosphere which is no doubt likely to be charged given the return of David Moyes after the nightmare that was 2016/17, the lads will be looking to make it back-to-back wins and three games unbeaten as we return to the Stadium of Light.
