Chelsea play with 3-4-3 line up. They use a lot of different players but positions’ roles don’t change so it’s not a problem to understand Chelsea’s 3-4-3.


Stoppers are so important in Chelsea’s making game plans because Chelsea’s one centre midfielder plays in regista role and the other one supports forward more. But if Kovacic and Jorginho play at the same time, they both try to make game.
Because they have 3 stoppers, one stopper who is closer to the ball’s area supports the attack like a midfielder and the stopper who is too far away from the ball closes to the center stopper. With these movements, they have 2 midfielders who try to make game and 2 stoppers who protect the defense’s safety.
For one of the stoppers to support the attack, he needs free space in forward. So because of that, for example, centre stopper can’t support forward like right or left stopper. Because in his front the centre midfielder who makes game takes position. So for him to support the attack, centre midfielder has to be a little bit right or left. Or they have to switch their positions. For example, sometimes they can’t make game under the opponent’s high pressing. This time, centre midfielder could close to the defense line to help stoppers. And when he closes, because also he creates space in centre, centre stopper could shift to this free space and they make game from this switch.
For example, in this situation, Chelsea try to make game against Juventus’s high pressing. Thiago Silva is the centre stopper.

Centre midfielder who is in regista role Jorginho closes to help make game but the opponent’s left centre midfielder matches with him. The opponent’s centre forward shifts to Silva too.

So Jorginho has to pass back to Mendy. But Silva shifts to right a little bit and Mendy passes to him. So they are out of the opponent’s high pressing.

The opponent’s centre forward was so careful about covering Silva but when Jorginho passed back to Mendy, he had to close to Mendy. So this time, automatically his control in Silva became less because now he was far away from Silva. And also because now he couldn’t see Silva, Silva just had to shift to a different space to take the ball from Mendy.
I said that they have one centre midfielder who is in regista role and one centre midfielder who supports forward. So the main game maker is this regista. But in Chelsea, all the players help about making game.
As I said before, one stopper could go to midfield and help making game. To explain better, let’s look at this situation. Left stopper went to midfield from left half-space and right stopper closed to centre stopper. In this situation, left wing back cannot go to left half-space to take the ball because left stopper is already there. So he can use only left wing. Of course it depends on left winger’s position too but for now, he can use the whole wing.
If we keep looking at this situation, right stopper takes position closer to the centre stopper. So now he takes position more centrally than his previous situation. In centre midfield, one centre midfielder takes position. So right half-space and right wing is free to use. The right wing back could use the wing. If he uses the wing, they won’t have a player who helps to centre midfielder about making game from right half-space. Right stopper closed to centre stopper and the other centre midfielder supports forward and right wing back doesn’t close to midfield if the game doesn’t lock. But it’s not a problem for Chelsea because now they have a centre midfielder and left stopper in midfield’s central areas and if the opponent doesn’t press to stop making game, it is enough to make game. Also of course right wing back could take position in right half-space too if centre midfielder and left stopper can’t make game.
So now right wing back is in right wing. It means right centre midfielder is in right half-space and between midfield and forward lines. He has to or they can’t share spaces effectively. Of course players could take position in the same vertical space side by side but it’s all because to create space for the other 3rd player.
For example, in this situation, right stopper Chalobah has the ball. Left centre midfielder Jorginho is in midfield’s centre and in regista role. Right centre midfielder Kante is in right half-space. Right wing back Reece James is in the wing. So now Chalobah, Kante and Reece James have connections between each other.

Chalobah passes to Reece James and when Reece James takes the ball, Kante starts to run forward from right half-space to wing. So in right half-space, Kante creates space. Now Chalobah is not a part of any passing connections to go forward. But it’s not a problem for Chelsea because as you see, Jorginho starts to move to right half-space. Now he is the 3rd player instead of Chalobah.

After Jorginho goes to right half-space and Kante goes to right wing, Reece James and Kante are in the same vertical space side by side. It’s a problem for Chelsea because now they can just pass each other vertically. So the ball’s direction doesn’t change to right or left, it just goes from the same vertical direction. So if the opponent’s player takes position just to meet the player who will pass the ball, the opponent’s player can also cut the connection between the passer and pass receiver (in our situation, this passer is Reece James and the opponent’s player who can cut the connection is left back who closes to Reece James). Also now the opponent’s one player follows Kante. So he can stop Kante too. So Reece James can’t pass to Kante.

But if a Chelsea player closes to right half-space and takes position in the space that Kante created in right half-space, they can be effective. Jorginho closes to right half-space and takes the ball from Reece James comfortably. Then the opponent’s centre forward closes to Jorginho and stops him with a foul.

Jorginho could take the ball comfortably because when he started to close to Reece James, also he started to be the closest player to Reece James. So the connection between Kante and Reece James started to be less important because now, Reece James’ first option to pass was not Kante any longer. Jorginho was being this player. But the opponent couldn’t react quickly to these positioning changes. So naturally, Reece James passed to Jorginho.
Now let’s keep looking at Chelsea’s players positions. If right centre midfielder is in the right half-space, centre forward and right winger don’t take position in right half-space to give right centre midfielder a free space. So right winger takes position in wing. But if he has making game abilities (like Ziyech), he could take position in centre forward’s behind in a free role to make game. If he takes position in centre forward’s behind, they don’t jam because this time, centre forward moves to right or left or tries to escape the opponent’s behind. If one centre midfielder is in centre and the other one is in right half-space, left wing back and left winger need to move with more coordination. But also I have to say that, if Kante doesn’t play (for example Kovacic plays instead of Kante), this time centre midfielders do the similar jobs. To make game both help defenders and the centre midfielder who is in actual regista role supports forward more. But in our situation, Kante is the right centre midfielder so I explain the positionings from that.
Left winger and left wing back have different roles in different situations like the rest of the team. And of course they accord the roles for the players too. For example, if left winger is a game maker, he usually takes position in left half-space and if right winger does not have a game maker role, he takes position in between forward and midfield lines as a free game maker. And if left wing back doesn’t have making game abilities, he uses wing more. But in the end, they both don’t have a regular positioning.
In our situation, left stopper supports the attack. If he wouldn’t, left wing back would close to left half-space to help centre midfielder about making game or left winger would. But because in our situation left stopper is already there, left wing back and left winger can think more about attacking directly.
There is not any regular positioning like left winger takes position in forward and left wing back supports him from wing. Positionings change all the time according to the moment match position. But these changes don’t have much importance. The important point is, where and when they change positions. Because of that Chelsea’s players’ unregular positions work. They all change positions coordinately. With a match situation, we can understand better.
In this position, Chelsea try to make game against Juventus in set attack. Chalobah has the ball in right half-space and Rüdiger is free in left half-space.

When Rüdiger takes the ball from Chalobah, Chelsea’s attacking players move coordinately. When Rüdiger takes the ball, the opponent’s right centre midfielder goes forward to meet Rüdiger. When he goes, Ziyech shifts to right centre midfielder’s behind. The opponent’s left centre midfielder was matching with Ziyech but when Ziyech shifted to left, because now he is not in left centre midfielder’s marking area anymore, left centre midfielder doesn’t follow him. And as you can see in this picture, he makes a hand sign to want a help about covering Ziyech. The opponent’s right stopper can’t close to Ziyech because Pulisic could escape from the defense line’s back. And because the opponent’s left stopper doesn’t cover Pulisic closely, right stopper doesn’t go forward to cover Ziyech. And also, already there is a player who goes forward from Juventus’ defense line. Right back goes forward to cover Hudson-Odoi who closes to midfield.

Rüdiger passes to Hudson-Odoi. Because of match’s camera angle of the moment, we couldn’t see but when the ball was going to Hudson-Odoi, Chilwell tried to escape to the defense line’s back from left half-space and the opponent’s right midfielder tried to cover him. So Chilwell tried to use the space which one Hudson-Odoi created. But because the ball was going to Hudson-Odoi, they couldn’t use Chilwell’s movement. Then Hudson-Odoi tries to pass to Ziyech but he can’t. But in this situation, with all these positionings, they confused the opponent’s mind and broke the opponent’s regular positionings.

Maybe you can say that, Chilwell’s positioning didn’t work for Chelsea. But actually it worked. If he didn’t run to left half-space, for example if he stayed at the wing, the opponent’s right midfielder wouldn’t have to follow him because Chilwell would be out of the danger zone. So right midfielder could focus on to helping his teammates to cover centre. But when Chilwell moved to left half-space, right midfielder had to close to him because now he was a threat. So right midfielder couldn’t support his teammates.