It is dangerous to assume too much from pre-season encounters,
particularly when a club's newly appointed manager is still gauging
the strengths and weaknesses of his recently inherited squad. Yet,
after comfortable wins against Seattle Sounders and now Internazionale, some insights have
been gleaned into Carlo Ancelotti's thinking for the
season ahead.
The slick passing in Pasadena caught the eye, an apparent
willingness to use a passer like Deco rather than merely a tackler
at the foot of a midfield diamond also noted, yet most intriguing
of all may be his apparent willingness to begin games with a pair
of strikers. That is hardly a revolutionary concept, but it still
represents a move away from the 4-3-3, 4-1-4-1 or 4-5-1
combinations that have steadily crept more and more into a Premier League where failure, either
at top of bottom, is simply not an option. For all that the
defensive midfield shield remains, whether it be Deco, Michael
Ballack or John Mikel Obi, Ancelotti's forward thinking feels
almost bold.
Admittedly, either the Major League Soccer side overcome on
Saturday nor Jose Mourinho's Inter, a team who
laboured behind Chelsea in their pre-season
preparations, offered much defensive surety to frustrate a paired
strike force or bite deeper on the counter-attack. Whether
Ancelotti begins with two up top in the Premier League remains to
be seen, yet the Italian, hardly a regular selector of two
out-and-out forwards while with Milan, seems set on the idea. "I
would like to play with two strikers because we can put more zonal
pressing," said Ancelotti. "I want to follow this way."
To that end, three combinations of strikers have been used to
date. The Sounders were pierced twice while Daniel Sturridge and
Nicolas Anelka, perhaps not the most natural pairing but full of
slippery running, strutted their stuff in front of a midfield
diamond. Franco di Santo and Claudio Pizarro replaced them at the
interval, with Andriy Shevchenko employed on the right of midfield.
Neither the Peruvian or the Ukrainian is likely to start the new
campaign at Stamford Bridge, while Di Santo may yet move elsewhere
to gain first-team experience.
Then came the forward-line against Inter. Didier Drogba and
Salomon Kalou have spent their summers on World Cup duty with Ivory
Coast, preventing their participation earlier for their club side,
but they linked up cleverly here against Mourinho's Inter. The
Italians may have been off the pace with their fitness yet their
snarl remained, but neither forward had his focus blurred. Drogba's
curled opener 11 minutes in, the ball fizzing through Vid Belec's
weak flap, offered a reminder of his quality. Kalou has never
scored the goals initially anticipated of him, particularly after
his prolific spell in Holland, but he linked up cleverly and
drifted wide when required, providing width when neither full-back
could spring up the flank.
Sturridge, a player of clear ability, won a penalty from Ivan
Cordoba just four minutes after joining Anelka in the fray, the
spot kick dispatched by Lampard who revelled again at the tip of
the midfield diamond. "These matches are used to try new
situations," offered Ancelotti as a reminder that this is a period
of fitness work and experimentation, and not necessarily a true
indicator of things to come. Regardless, to have beaten his arch
rival Mourinho, a manager who worked with 10 of Chelsea's starters
during his three-year spell in west London and invariably employed
his trusty 4-3-3, must have offered the Italian some private
satisfaction. So far, so good.