He's got Pedro available to him on this side. He's got Matteas Kuna available to him on this side. And then as we play to Matteas, as we spoke about, Matteas just became an expert in finishing from this part of the pitch.

[Music] Going to do a recap today of my Wolves team facing Mauricio Pochettino's Chelsea in the Premier League in in 2024 at Stanford Bridge. We went into the game just below them in the league. Obviously, anytime you go to Stanford Bridge, you're expecting a very tough match, but we felt traveling down there and with the work through the week and what we had available to us that it was it was going to give us a real good opportunity to maybe jump above them.

Yeah. So, we're going to look into it in some detail, look at some in possession, out of possession pitches and and how that memorable day unfolded. [Music] Our lineup that day, we had Jose Sar in goal.

Was in very good form at the time. Helped us a lot. We had Totty Gomez playing left back, Craig Dawson left side center back, Max Kilman on the right, Nelson in a right back position.

Ryan Aturi actually left midfield. Um, and a lot of people watching the game would have seen us more as a back five because Ryan had a had a job to do against Gusto of sort of tracking down, but Ryan was the left of a of a of a midfield four. Jel Gomez, Mario Lamina really good too.

Were excellent on the day regaining the ball. Pablo Sarabia playing off the right but tucked in quite a bit to use the area inside the pitch. And then obviously Hechan was our only real number nine at the football club and he suffered an injury.

So we went with with Pedro Netto as sort of a makeshift nine. Matteas Kuna in this number 10 position. We'll get into Matteas Kuna in a bit more detail later when we move into in possession, but just suited Pedro on the day.

We know he's his favorite position. and he loves to operate up against this this right flank coming inside on his left foot, but just suited sort of the counterattack and and what we needed from our nine in this day and just being flexible. You know, the the squad did have real quality in it, but it did lack a bit of depth.

So, whenever we suffered an injury in this area, we had to be quite sort of creative with with what we were able to do with the 11. [Music] Chelsea's lineup that day, we it was really difficult to pick. So in the buildup in the week, we were trying to figure out what they were going to do, what we thought they might be.

Obviously, they had real good depth everywhere. So Petravvic played in goal that day. Ben Chillwell played as a left back.

Thiago Silva on this left side center back and we sort of tried to tried to get Pedro Netto up against him if we could at times. Obviously top top center back, but with the speed that Pedro had and the the part of his career that he was entering into Thiago, we felt we could try and exploit some some spaces down here. Szi Gusto in this right pack position but would push on an awful lot.

Cole Palmer on the side he would roll in and Gusto would use this space down the outside. Connor Gallagher as sort of the right eight. Cassedo in his his position that he has mastered as a as a six.

Enzo Fernandez on the left side of the three in midfield and then Sterling playing in his his usual left wing position and and Kungu as the as the number nine who look to drop down and link quite a lot. So a very strong Chelsea team, but one that we felt really suited our sort of tactical plan on the day. [Music] It was a fairly unique game plan for us, but one one that suited our what we had available really well on the day.

So although it's Chelsea away and you know it's a tough game, we went there with real confidence. I think the week the buildup through the week was very very good. Most people as we spoke about would have seen us as a back five a lot that day, but Chelsea sort of they change shape a lot when they win the ball.

So obviously we see them as a 4-3-3, but because they like to use Cole Palmer in the pocket more, they would look a bit a little bit more 325 once they regain possession and they got comfortable possession. So Ben Chillwell would play quite low as the left back. Gusto would push on and play really high.

They would move Cole Palmer in as sort of a right 10, Enzo Fernandez as a left 10. Sterling keeping the width on this side. So instead of Rayan always being up here as a left midfielder, he he sort of tracked down.

Totty Gomez would be in on Cole Palmer. And we made a big effort that day of keeping our team really close together. There's some real good clips in the game of there only probably being 20 yards, 22 yards between our front line and our back line, which was not a usual game plan for us.

We used to like being quite aggressive without the ball, but we didn't feel like we needed to in the day. Chelsea passed the ball quite early from the back line. They weren't ones that tried to attract pressure and tried to bounce around.

Chelsea played the ball quite early to the side. So, we were able to keep our front two down and keep real good protection. So, we were really, really comfortable in this sort of it looks like a 5-32 shape, but really comfortable in keeping the lines close together.

It was really suited Pablo Sarabia because Ben Chillwell never sort of got on. Pablo could cover the inside for us really well knowing that Ben Chillwell wasn't really gonna go anywhere. So Pablo could cover this inside pocket, stop Fernandez getting on the ball and then as the ball went outside, Pablo could just creep out and get passive pressure on force Chelsea back.

We never really had to jump. And then the beauty of it was because we had real pace in these two in Kuna and Pedro Netto that as they turned the ball over in these areas or especially on this side we were able to get these lovely runs from Pedro in this space up against Thiago Silva and we did a lot of work on the week on can we get our first pass forward on transition. Um the job of Rayan Aturi and Totty Gomez really suited them.

So Tootty was excellent in man for man situations. So if you can imagine Gusto and Cole Palmer's starting positions really straightforward but now as they start to rotate and Gusto moves high and Cole Palmer moves in the pocket suited Ray to follow him down. Ray was a left wing back naturally anyway so tracked him down really well and Totty nice and aggressive on Cole Palmer so we never had Cole Palmer available to sort of turn.

He scored a good goal early on in the game which was probably the only time that he managed to get away from Tootty. It was a great job done by Pedro and Matteas. They were really diligent in these three were not allowed to pass to these two at all through the game because of our Chelsea build.

They never really tried to attract us out. So Matteas and Pedro were able to keep the team together, restrict the spaces and we were able to sort of even if they played to the side now and they tried to get it back into pivot, we always had people around them to get good pressure on the ball and it really helped Max and Dors with keeping us really close in these lines and they never had to step out. So, it was a really sort of unique solid away from home performance because normally as a coach I love getting pressure on the ball and I want Pablo to jump and I want Pedro Netto to jump and I want us to be aggressive and I want the back line to come up when we jump and I want us to restrict the spaces.

But I just felt with how Chelsea built and what we had available to us, it was much better for us to keep these lines really close together. [Music] We end up quite low in the pitch a bit um in this game naturally because we're we're not getting pressure on the ball. So we did a lot of work with the back four and the outside midfielders on these sort of roles when the ball's wide.

So if Cole Palmer was going to receive the ball wide and he had drifted wide at any time. We knew that Gusto would be arriving around him with pace. So we did a lot of work on the week on Totty Gomez and Rayan and understanding of their relationship in these situations and Tootty always knew that he would be the one to take the runner up and then Ray would try and squash Cole Palmer from this side to stop him coming back on his left foot.

You see a lot of times when wingers try and help out with this overlap. You say Gusto goes round here. Cole Palmer starts to drive at Tootty.

They work so hard to get back that they overcover. And now Cole Palmer's able to come in on his left foot, flip things to the back post or get shots off. So we work really hard on this too.

Tootty and Rayan and understanding that there was no misunderstanding. Rayan was never going to try and follow this overlap. He was always going to come and try and squash Cole Palmer and let Totty Gomez take the overlap.

Tootty did great a few times on stopping balls coming into the box. And as we started to get joy with it, you could actually see Totty and Dors and that celebrating these good defensive situations and when we were able to block stuff. Same on this side.

You think of Pablo Sarabia as a as a real attacking number 10 and not someone that's going to like this part of the game, but he was fantastic on the day and we drilled it with him and Nelson. They had a real good relationship. Same detail.

Ben Chill, however, arrive late to come around Raheem Sterling. Nel would just instantly back off to take the overlap. Pablo would come and stop Raheem Sterling coming in onto his strong foot and it would just give us a lovely solid base.

Still had our three and our two midfielders to deal with anything that came in the box and it just gave us a real good clear understanding and that the lads dealt with it fantastically well on a day restricted Chelsea to very very few chances. anytime they did manage to get balls in the box. As you can see, we've got good numbers and also the beauty of if Chillwell did release and trying to attack.

If we win the ball here now, let's not just clear it. Can we get balls into Matteas's feet or can we get Pedro Netto peeling off into this space against Thiago Silva? And now anytime you get Pedro Netto one v one in this situation gave us a lovely opportunity to transition up the pitch and a bit of a mismatch pace-wise against Thiago Silva.

So a nice solid base that gave us good numbers but also gave us a good opportunity to to turn it into attacking situations with Matteas and and Pedro ready to counter. [Music] It's all well and good being well organized out of possession, but if you constantly keep suffering and you don't secure the ball when you get it back, it becomes a really long day at Stanford Bridge. So, we were excellent with the ball that day.

And you can see I've got a set in our sort of 442 out of possession shape. But similar to Chelsea, we would use Nelson as a high right back. So, we would move into 325.

Nelson would push high. Pablo Sarabia would move into this pocket as a as a right 10. Pedro would be our nine.

Matteas Kuna would move in sort of as a left 10. Rayan Aturi would use the outside opposite side to Nelson. And then the two center backs in Max Kilman and Dors would just balance off with Tootty as sort of a low left back.

Um we knew that Chelsea coaching staff wouldn't want Raheem to track all the way down with Nel. So we sort of predicted that they would press three for free on the top line. So Kungu would go straight down Craig Dawson's throat.

Sterling would try and jump to to Max Kilman and Cole Palmer would would jump to Totty Gomez. So in that you have the our two number 10s in Pablo and um Matteas Kuna and you have Cassedo trying to look after both of them. So you can see a really a really tough job for him if the ball's on this side.

Cassedo's trying to get across to help with Pablo Sarabia. But now Matteas Kuna's all the way on the opposite side. So we were working really hard on being able to switch the play and trying to get it through into these pockets.

As the ball was being cycled around, Joe Gomez knew to try and narrow up Connor Gallagher so that we could try and open this pocket into Matteas Kuna. And the work that had been done with Matteas since we'd been there, he was a proper Brazilian number 10 who wanted to be here sometimes, wanted to be here sometimes, wanted to drop down and help us here with the ball. And we did a lot of work with him on Matteas, use this pocket and use this part of the pitch and we'll teach you how to.

And then you're going to get all your chances to score in this area where he was naturally fantastic at this sort of inside left channel. If you can get Matteas chances to finish from here, he's one of the best in the world at it. If you can get him one v one with people in these areas, he's absolutely unstoppable.

Matteas wasn't using this part of the pitch well enough for me when I got there. He was sort of being used as a nine but drifted. So, we really honed his skills into using this part of the pitch.

And how we built was dependent on what Chelsea did. So, I'll go to the other side quickly and we'll do it on the other side for Pablo because Dors was right footed. So, Dorse found it much easier.

So we spoke to Mario Lamino around trying to play more narrow than Xiao just to try and open up this pocket into Pablo. So Pablo Saravia is available through here. If Raheem Sterling wants to try and press Max like he was trying to do as we recycle the ball around Dors CSO we've moved all the way over to Matteas Kuna.

As we recycle the ball around Dors, can you get it straight through this gate? We used to call it trying to get it through the gate. Can you get it through this gate into Pablo?

And now we get this lovely 2v1 where he's driving. We've got Nelson on the outside of Chillwell. So we always had a solution for Dors.

You know, whether if Raheem Sterling wants to stay narrow now Dors, we'll just go outside to Max, we'll roll Pablo Sarabia in this sort of 10 roll out position. And there's no way that Casso can make up the ground to get from all the way over here to getting out to our opposite number 10. So, we had fantastic joy switching the ball, getting the ball either through to our 10, getting the ball outside to our 10 or hitting big diags to the outside and getting our 10 to make this wide half space run where Thiago Silva is meant to cover this.

But if we run it wide enough, you see some people run it straight through the gap and it's easy for Thiago Silva to squash. We worked really hard on getting Pablo to sort of as the ball arrives at Nel and Ben Chillwell releases, Pablo sort of stays in his shadow and then ducks underneath which gets him further away from Thiago Silva. And then the beauty of this is you end up with your number nine, your number 10 and your opposite left winger in a lovely 3v2 in the box.

So any cross you can get in now, you obviously have a 60% chance of first contact. Rayan Aturi arrives here once for his goal. It gets a deflection admittedly, but we have a lovely overload in the box.

So, real good joy around trying to get into our number 10s and trying to switch the play to try and create overloads against the way Chelsea set up. And then something that they would try and do Chelsea once we started to get some success as you imagine Cassad's worried about Kuna this side. Kuna might have rolled him out to the outside.

Tootty Gomez switches the ball. Thiago Silva would now be tempted at times to come in on Sarabia and leave us in this man-for-man situation. And then we would just get Pedro Netto running down the side with his space.

Anytime a center back stepped out the back line, Pedro would just use his speed to run down the side. Sort of a good oldfashioned channel ball, but with good understanding and good speed on the end of it. So we always had a solution.

No matter what Chelsea did on the day, no matter how they tried to fix it, the lads had a solution and they had real good joy. [Music] The importance of having intelligent people in these positions and Pablo Sarabia was super intelligent. He was almost like having a coach on the pitch.

So Pablo understood this position really, really well. and he understood that if we got outside to Nelson and Enzo Fernandez tried to help Cassado at any point Pablo would just run him away, you know, and as Cassad's on his way across would be able to get back into Mario Lamina. And the beauty of this is now you get this lovely 2v1 on this side and Matteas and Pablo were both really well on if we have time on the ball, run this corridor.

the goal we scored at Fulham the following season where Mario Amirina drops a fantastic ball for Kuna when he's run through this corridor. That's obviously the ideal scenario is when Mario has time on the ball. Matteas Kuna runs this corridor.

We get him in on goal. But fullbacks are obviously well coached and most of them will try and cover the inside first. So as Mattas is making this run, fullback will try and squash him.

But that now gives Mario a lovely diag to the outside. And now we get this same movement that we spoke about there where yep, fullback's covered Matteas. You didn't get the ball in the first instance, Matteas, but now fullback's going to release.

Can you stay in his shadow and can we slide you down into the half space and get you into these areas where you operate so well? [Music] The first goal comes from them playing outside and them trying to get back into Casso. Obviously, they were keen to try and find Cassedo as a pivot, but because Pedro never really left him, we were able to squash him really well.

Now, as the ball comes back inside the pitch, Xiao Gomez is able to squash him from this side. And Pedro Netto, because he's close to him, he's able to get his foot on it on this side. And now you have Matteas in this lovely position where we're able to transition.

So, as Pedro wins the ball, we're able to break. Xiao Gomez is able to join in. I think it's Xiao who actually picks up the ball.

And I know he gets fortunate on the day, it takes a big deflection. But trust me, if if you get Matteas into this position on a football pitch enough, you're going to get some good results from him because he's got the finish where he bends it in the far corner. He's got the one where he's able to reverse it and drag it into the near post.

He can take you outside and he can cut it back. But on the day we're able to win the ball back from that real nice Pedro Netto on Cassedo, able to transition quickly, get Matteas Kuna into his favorite part of the pitch and then he shifts it onto his right foot. We get a little bit fortunate with the deflection and it ends up going into the near post.

But a real good goal that came from real good organization out of possession and able to transition up the pitch quickly. [Music] Second goal came from the opposite to the first goal where we get into a real good in possession structure. So Max has pushed into this back free position.

Nelson tomato has pushed on. Pablo has moved into his pocket. We're able to get Cassedo to come all the way over here with Matteas Kuna.

We have some real good possession. If you watch the game back, you can see Ryan and Matteas passing the ball to each other a few times which looks like they're doing it for no reason. But what they're trying to do is they're trying to attract Cassedo to make sure that he comes all the way to this side of the pitch before we decide to recycle it.

So we we keep possession this side, but our whole team have recognized that we're not trying to attack here. We're trying to attract Chelsea to this side. We're trying to now get back through or around to Craig Dawson on his right foot.

And as Raheem Sterling now jumps, Mario Lamina narrows up the midfielder. We now have Pedro Netto and Nelson in this lovely 2v1 with with Ben Chillwell. So as the ball arrives at Dors, he gets it onto his right foot.

The quality of Craig Dawson's diags were were top draw. Even surprised me when I arrived at the football club how good he was at at hitting these long passes. Pedro recognizes the trigger of Dors having time on the ball.

Pedro makes this lovely run that narrows up Ben Chillwell. Dorse hits a lovely diag to Nel as Ben Chillwell leaves. Pedro Netto makes this fantastic little arked run down the side.

It's too far to Thiago to go, so he sort of ends up in no man's land. Pedro ends up in this nice position where Thiago hasn't been able to follow him. We have Pablo arriving as a nine.

We have Matteas Kuna arriving as an opposite 10. And then we have our third man arriving as a 3v2. He comes for the cut back, Rayan Cassedo's not quite able to recover.

Pedro cuts it back. Rayanne gets a good shot on target and it ends up going into this near post. So, a real good goal of being patient, understanding we're trying to move Casso to this side of the pitch to get to the opposite side of the pitch, get to the 2v1.

Once we get to the 2v1, attack as quickly as possible, arrive with numbers, and then always making sure that behind that we get our back line up and our rest defense is always well organized. Even Jose Sar involved in rest defense in case something comes out, we're able to get good contact or make a good foul or if it goes over the top, Jose Sar is able to pick it up for us and make a real good clearance. But a fantastic goal that came from real good understanding with the ball.

[Music] Our third goal actually came from a a longer distribution from Jose. And we spoke about this a lot in the game around we felt we were going to be able to have good control of the ball and we felt we were going to be able to build. But of course at at some point at Stanford Bridge, especially if you're 21 up and there's maybe half an hour left on the clock, we don't need to be sort of killing ourselves here by overplaying.

So if we ever felt the need to, we were always going to try and kick to this side. And we knew that if we could get Ben Chillwell out of the line that we would be able to get Pedro Netto to use these spaces down the outside. So anytime Jose Sar kicked long in the game, we went to this part of the pitch and we had two real like top competitive center midfielders that anytime things dropped in here, you fancied Mario Lamina and Xiao Gomez with their physicality to be able to pick things up.

So, as soon as the ball drops here now, you see Pedro Netto peel off into this lovely space. And we're just able to fight and scrap and win second balls and get him up and away against Thiago Silva. And now we have Ryan Aturi arriving really quickly at the back post from the opposite side as Pedro is able to progress.

Defenders working really hard from Chelsea to recover. Thiago not quite able to catch Pedro Netto and Matteas just able to win this race because he's the wrong side of their defensive midfielder. Matteas is now able to win this race and Pedro top quality to be moving at this speed to to be under the pressure he is and to recognize that the right ball isn't to fire it across for Ryan who's 1 v one.

is to show real composure on your right foot and to cut it back with lovely detail soft so that Matteas Kuna can just arrive in this area that we spoke about a lot and finish with his right foot. So the beauty of the three goals so far are that they're one comes from out possession structure. One comes from real good control and being able to play through the lines and one comes from an understanding of we're at Stanford Bridge and it's not always going to be pretty and we have two real top competitors in the middle of the pitch and we can still isolate Pedro 1 v1 against Thiago Silva down the side.

And then I think most of the stadium especially this end where the Wolves fans were sat were thinking 3-1. This is unbelievable. Game's done.

But you can imagine in this technical area here, 3-1 up still with with 25 minutes to go. There's still a lot of work to be done. So now instantly as soon as we score this goal, our fault returns to right, let's get the lads back on task.

Let's not let them get get carried away. 3-1's a dangerous score line. If Chelsea score at any moment, this game is still on.

So we needed to get them back, get them reset. Chelsea started to make some subs and then we were able to move things around a little bit to help us get the the fourth goal. [Music] As Chelsea responded later on in the game, the coaching staff obviously very good at the level and they started to try and protect these pockets really really well.

And as the game drifted on, we were struggling to get Matteas Kunga the ball. We were getting Ryan loads of the ball on the outside because he was left footed. It was really hard for him to wrigle away from Gusto.

Gusto sort of squashed in. We ended up going back. They ended up get getting good pressure on the ball.

So, as this ball was on its way around, we asked Rayan to move inside and use the pocket and Kuna would move outside. Although it's the same pitcher, it's completely different attributes. Matteas Kuna's outside.

He's right footed. He's more of a winger profile. He's going to go at you one v one.

So now Gusto had a problem where Matteas Kuna would now front him up one v one. Instead of it being Ryan and Ryan coming back on his left foot, Kuna would just front him up one v one. And although Chelsea have now solved the problem by protecting the middle of the pitch with numbers, we now get to this 1 v one area that we speak about on the outside of the pitch where Matteas knows now I'm going to come down late for Tootty.

So I'm going to wait until there's pressure. I'm going to arrive late and I'm going to face Gusto up and I'm going to take him 1 v one. And then obviously we had a an unbelievable talent in Matteas Kuna and he's able to get Gustau all the way back into the penalty area and win a penalty that that gets us 4-1 up in the game.

We shared a nice moment after the game, me and Matteas really, because he obviously big money transfer to Wolves from from Athletico and hadn't really worked out for him in that first season. And we had a good relationship, myself and Matteas, but I know I drove him mad at times with the amount of work that I asked him to do and how diligent I wanted him to be in these positions and how I couldn't improve the talent that he had because his talent was already top. But what he needed to do was trust my understanding of where he needed to be and why and at what times and that he needed to be there always and that we didn't want to waste any opportunities.

And he was just getting more and more opportunities to show the world how good he was in this area. So I know that he appreciated the work that went into him and he could feel the appreciation I had for him cuz to work with a a player with this ability that you could get the ball into the pocket to and he could cause chaos or you could ask him to play outside and he could still cause chaos. And the same with Pedro Netto, you know, he'd had a real tough season the season before, but for him to be able to be on a big stage like Stanford Bridge and to be able to show to people that he could operate as a nine, he could still operate on the outside and face people up 1 v one and that his understanding was top.

And now obviously you see Pedro Netto now being at one of the best clubs in the world. You see Matteas Kuna being able to move on and play for one of the biggest clubs in the world. So, a lot of work that went in from them to buy into what I asked them to do.

[Music] My favorite spell as a football coach so far in my short career was where we had this football team at this moment where everything fit so well. When Channy was still available or when Pedro was able to come in as the nine, I knew no matter where we went, we were going to be able to cause teams problems with the big wins. you know, whether it was Manchester City at home and we were able to beat, whether it was Chelsea at home, Chelsea away, Tottenham at home, Tottenham away, some huge, huge results that we were able to put together with this incredibly talented group that we were able to gel and sort of start to push on a on a real upward trajectory.

Gary O'Neil • Premier League Tactics, Chelsea 2 Wolves 4 • Masterclass