With Man City coming into this season’s Champions League final as -120 favorites, we are going to preview the reasons why Chelsea can overcome their underdog status and claim the top prize in European Football.
Saturday, May 29, 2021, 3:00 PM EDT – Estádio do Dragão
Since Thomas Tuchel has come to manage Chelsea in place of Frank Lampard, he has completely transformed this team into a defensive juggernaut. Tuchel has a very solid pedigree at this young stage of his career and this is his second Champions League final appearance as manager in two years, he managed to guide PSG to the final last season. Tuchel will also have a chip on his shoulder as he has now lost his previous two finals (losing 1-0 to Bayern Munich in last season Champions League final, and more recently Leicester City beat his Chelsea team 1-0 in the FA Cup final).
The German coach has a strong record head-to-head against Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola, which is a rare thing to find in football these days. The two managers first came head-to-head in Germany a few years previous when Tuchel was manager of Borussia Dortmund and Pep, Bayern Munich. Although his side was thrashed 5-1 in one game, they did manage to draw 0-0 twice. Since Tuchel has come to England he has a 2-0 record over Pep and Man City. Going 3-0 against Pep will be a difficult task, but with the weapons, he has available to him on his roster he could pull it out of the bag.
Chelsea have a lot of big stars on their roster, ranging from the veteran Caser Azpilicueta to the two young German stars Kai Havertz and Timo Werner, as well as English sensation Mason Mount. Then, you have the experienced stars like Olivier Giroud and Thiago Silva.
The team is flooded with a mix of experienced and youth, both world-class, but nobody is as important on the team as Frenchman N’Golo Kante. The 30-year-old is a complete workhorse on the pitch and covers almost every blade of grass when he plays. His main job is to win the ball back for his team and break downplays, and he is one of the best in the business, if not the best at his position in the world right now. Currently, he is an injury concern for the Blues ahead of this game and he would be a major blow. Chelsea would do well to win this without him.
Manchester City might have one of the best coaches in the world and one of the most tactically disciplined setups in the world, and they do have a lot of world-class strikers. But we believe Chelsea can boost the most potent goalscorers in the Premier League. The biggest issue for them is they have almost all been below par this season. As a quick example their three strikers, Tammy Abraham, Giroud and Werner have only combined for 16 goals in 74 appearances this season between all three, by our estimates, the “par” for these three combined should be in around the 34/35 goals mark.
Taking a look at the midfielders, many posses good goalscoring traits, Mason Mount, Christian Pulisic, Kai Havertz and Hakim Ziyech can all contribute a lot of goals each season when they are on form. Arguably the only one of these four who hasn’t dropped in form all season has been Mason Mount. These four players have contributed 16 goals this season with a combined appearance count at 113. We believe the “Par” should be in around 29/30 goals. That’s a rough total of around 30 goals that this team is missing out on.
First and foremost they must remain tactically disciplined, they must keep their shape and not allow Manchester City and gaps, as solid as Chelsea have been at the back its almost inevitable that Man City will create at least 2/3 strong goalscoring opportunities.
Second, their goalkeeper must be on form. Unfortunately at the time of writing their number one goalkeeper, Eduardo Mendy is an injury doubt for the final. Kepa will start ahead of him should he be deemed unfit and Kepa can be a world-class keeper on his day, with emphasis on CAN. He is prone to a few silly mistakes.
Thirdly for us, their strikers MUST be sniper-like in front of goal, because strong goalscoring opportunities against Man City is very low, so they must make them count when they get the opportunity. A fully fit Kante would be very beneficial, they can win without him, but it will make it that little bit harder. If Timo Werner can finally get it right and show us his true skill in front if goal, then Chelsea has a real chance to lift this year's Champions League trophy.
Interestingly the only other time they lifted the trophy was when they sacked their manager half way through the season, will history repeat itself