Chelsea played with 4-2-3-1 line up.
Crystal Palace played with 4-4-2 line up.
When Crystal Palace tried to defend midfield, Ayew and Zaha didn’t press to the opponent’s stoppers. One of them covered Kante and the other one covered Jorginho.
If Jorginho and Kante went to the centre midfield and Thiago Silva or Zouma had the ball, Zaha and Ayew closed to the stoppers but they also protected their distance between Kante and Jorginho. This time also McArthur and McCarthy closed to Kante and Jorginho. So they could cover both of Jorginho and Kante with 2 players.
So Chelsea couldn’t use Kante or Jorginho effectively and make game from centre and they tried to make game from wings.
In the Chelsea’s set attacks, Hudson-Odoi closed to the touchline and Azpilicueta took position behind him. Havertz was free. He moved in between the opponent’s defense and midfield line. But usually he used right half-space.
Werner usually ran to the opponent’s behind from left half-space or Ward’s behind. And Chilwell supported attacks from the left wing.
All the Chelsea’s forward line and Havertz had great movement. They changed positions amongst themselves, tried to use half-spaces but they couldn’t make game and created goal chances. It has a reason of course.
They moved wrongly. I mean they couldn’t use free spaces effectively. Movement is very important to make game. Because if a lot of players move different ways, the opponent couldn’t follow all the players and sooner or later one player can find free space. But if players move without the book, they can’t find free space. Because actually movement has a rule. If one player pulls the opponent, the other player should use the free space which the opponent isn’t now. If more than one player uses free space or moves in the same way at the same time, this time players can’t use free space. Chelsea did it and they couldn’t find free space in the away third. They needed “true movement”.
In this position, Chelsea is trying to make game. Abraham and Hudson-Odoi are in the forward line.
Both of them ran behind the opponent and look at the free space between the opponent’s midfield and defense line. If one of both was closing to the opponent’s defense and midfield lines and the other one was running behind the opponent, Jorginho could pass the player who was closing to him and they could pass the opponent’s midfield line and create goal chance.
In this position, Chelsea is trying to make game from the right wing.
Havertz and Werner are running to the opponent’s behind at the same time.
Look at the length of distance between Ayew’s and McArthur’s. If Havertz was coming behind them, he could take the ball. But he didn’t.
Chelsea won in the end but they couldn’t win in a convincing way. But we should remember they have a lot of new players. In the line up they had 5 new transfers. So of course when players know each other, they can play better.