Frank Lampard’s midfield tactics exploited Blues he knows best

         

If Derby County earn promotion at the end of this season, Frank Lampard will spend 2019/20 crafting strategies against many players and coaches he encountered – and usually bested – as a player. He will only have been gone from the Premier League for four years, which means many familiar faces will be looking at him from the pitch and from the opposing technical area. In a mind like his, this will be a significant advantage as the Rams fight for survival.

Two pillars of Derby County’s midfield strategy against Chelsea were Gary Cahill and Cesc Fabregas. Derby used these two as their reference points to sever Chelsea’s front half from the back, impairing Chelsea’s ability to play the ball out and giving the Rams extra opportunities on offence.

Frank Lampard has deep personal knowledge of both players. Lampard played 94 games with Gary Cahill for Chelsea and England. Appearances for the Three Lions started and finished their time together: from a European Championship qualifier in 2011 through the 2014 World Cup.

        

Lampard and Cesc Fabregas never played together but they faced each other 21 times. Sixteen of their first 18 meetings came in London derbies, with Fabregas at the heart of Arsenal’s midfield (the other two were with the national teams). Lampard’s last two Chelsea games against Fabregas were the semifinals of the 2011/12 Champions League, after Fabregas had returned to Barcelona. Their final meeting, though, was the bizarro-world game where Lampard was in the wrong shade of blue and Fabregas was with Chelsea. Less said about that game, the better.

Lampard set up Derby County in a 4-5-1 against Maurizio Sarri’s standard 4-3-3. Derby’s midfield line functioned as a full five-man unit when out of possession for much of the game. They moved with the discipline and cohesion of a well-drilled defensive line.

Early in the game one of the midfielders would join the striker in covering and pressing Gary Cahill whenever Chelsea had the ball deep in their zone. The Rams left Willy Caballero unmarked and kept a cover shadow on Andreas Christensen, making a pass from Caballero to Cahill the best option to play out from the back. Once Cahill received the ball, his markers – sometimes joined by a third – would swarm in to force an errant pass. This nearly paid off within the first five minutes, and they did not need to wait much longer to score a goal off a defensive error.

Derby’s midfield line of four – five when not supporting the pressure on Cahill – took station between Chelsea’s two midfield units. They stayed between Cesc Fabregas – the deep-lying playmaker at the apex of a triangle with the centre-backs – and N’Golo Kante and Mateo Kovacic in more forward positions. Since Cahill’s best option to avoid giving the ball away was a safe pass to Fabregas, Derby waited for him to make this pass before running at Fabregas. Mason Mount, in particular, kept Fabregas in his crosshairs the entire game.

Once Fabregas had the ball, Mount ran ahead of the midfield line to pressure Fabregas into a pass. The rest of Derby’s midfielders, though, blocked the passing lanes from Fabregas to Chelsea’s other midfielders or full-backs.