‘I called them boring’: TalkSPORT pundit changes his mind about Chelsea after watching them last night

 

Gabby Agbonlahor has urged Chelsea to persevere with a four-man defence having witnessed them outperform Real Madrid yesterday.

Speaking on talkSPORT, the former striker voiced his preference towards the formation Thomas Tuchel used last night, as appose to the manager’s favoured 3-4-2-1 set-up.

Tuchel almost toppled Madrid

Tuchel opted for a 4-3-3 system at the Bernabeu on Tuesday, hoping to disrupt Madrid enough to cause a major Champions League retaliation.

As has so often been the case throughout the German’s tenure in charge of the Premier League side, he got his tactics pretty much spot on.

Gabby Agbonlahor has urged Chelsea to persevere with a four-man defence having witnessed them outperform Real Madrid yesterday.

Kai Havertz, Mason Mount and Timo led the press, supported by the midfield trio of Mateo Kovacic, N’Golo Kante and Ruben Loftus-Cheek.

Marcos Alonso and Reece James then forrayed down the flanks, with the latter doing a particularly impressive job on Vinicius Jnr.

Loftus-Cheek, a wing-back in the win at Southampton last weekend, moved to a more traditional central role to add extra bulk in that area of the field.

Where Madrid overran Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, they now found themselves matched across the pitch.

This allowed the Blues to grab the Spanish bull by the horns and almost charge to victory.

Is a Chelsea change for the best?

“Wow, how good were Chelsea? Do you know what I liked about the performance the most was that Chelsea played a four at the back,” admitted Agbonlahor.

“I called them boring last week because that five at the back for me is a boring formation.

“Last night, it was like ‘Reece James you go with Vinicius, Loftus-Cheek you stay on the right side and look to help Reece James when needed’; he didn’t even need the help.

“Then the front three of Havertz, Werner and Mount, they were outstanding. The way they switched roles, all had free roles. And Chelsea were very unlucky.

“Going forward, I think Chelsea need to stick to that four at the back.”

Unfortunately for Tuchel’s men, their strategy was not quite enough to push them over the line.

Mount, Antonio Rudiger and Werner all found the target to place Chelsea on the brink of reaching the semi-finals, only for Madrid to strike back with ten minutes of the encounter remaining.

Karim Benzema then scored his fourth of the whole tie in the first half of extra time, breaking blue hearts in the process.

But Chelsea’s display proved they will be back challenging for European glory again before too long.