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How can Premier League teams stop Chelsea this season?

With Chelsea having won 10 of their 12 Premier League matches this season and only drawn the other two after late goals against them, tactics expert Jonathan Wilson examined Chelsea’s strengths on Sky Sports News looking at what it might take to find a way to beat them…

Chelsea fell just short of Manchester City and Liverpool in the Premier League title race last season but they’re a different proposition now, Jonathan Wilson told Sky Sports News.

Perhaps the biggest difference between Chelsea this season and Chelsea last season has been the arrival of Diego Costa and his partnership with Cesc Fabregas. Costa’s form has been exceptional this season.

What that means is that the problem Chelsea had at times last season when they couldn't break down teams like West Brom, like West Ham, like Sunderland, like Norwich, that's effectively gone because they've got that difference in the box. He’s scored 11 goals already.

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The other key figure has been Oscar. Fabregas gets forward quite a lot and that means Nemanja Matic comes across to cover so Oscar’s role has been absolutely key.

We think of him as being mainly a creator and we know the goals he can score such as the one against Crystal Palace with the outside of his right foot. But also, he makes tackles.

Despite his build, he’s been making 2.6 tackles per game this season which is a phenomenal number for a player in his position.

What that means is that Chelsea have the option of playing the 4-2-3-1 or they can go to a 4-3-3 shape. You look at the midfielders and they’re all prepared to work and they’re all prepared to tackle.

That is perhaps why Jose Mourinho was so keen to get rid of Juan Mata because what that gives you is this nice block of nine players very tight to deny the opposition space and that’s a very hard system to break down.

Image: Chelsea's defensive structure can be difficult to penetrate thanks to their hard-working midfield

From that compact shape they break forward with Willian on the right and Eden Hazard on the left. Or if the opposition is sitting deep they can push all four of those midfielders on as creators to really take the game to the opposition which was the problem they had last season.

So how do you beat Chelsea? Well the first thing to say is that they’ve only kept four clean sheets this season in 12 Premier League games. If you look at the goals they’ve conceded, of those 11, eight of them have come from crosses.

The Robin van Persie goal came from a fairly simple ball into the box which they failed to deal with. Late on against Crystal Palace, Fraizer Campbell scored after the ball was put into the box. That does seem to be a way of getting at them this season.

Manchester United v Chelsea in 2014/15
Image: Marouane Fellaini had some success in neutralising Cesc Fabregas in the game at Old Trafford

Also Cesc Fabregas has really been in the creative hole and if you get tight to him as Marouane Fellaini did for Manchester United you can reduce his effectiveness.

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Gus Poyet on Chelsea challenge

In the first half of that game his pass completion rate, against 85 per cent over the season as a whole, was down to 65 per cent. 

Fabregas was nowhere near as effective in this game and so Chelsea’s fluency wasn’t there. So if you can get at Fabregas perhaps there is a way of getting at Chelsea.

Watch Sunderland try to stop Chelsea on Saturday Night Football from 4.45pm

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