"We have worked hard on the transitional element of our play"

I posted the other week about what looked like Chelsea's new pressing game so far this season and watching our two recent performances against Aston Villa and Rangers, this has become more obvious than ever.

Barcelona are known in the game for their work ethic off the ball, to win it back in the opposition half and move it forward quickly and we all know the benefits to their game when they do that.

It's seems that AVB wants to employ the same tactic at Chelsea and has already implemented it this pre season. So much so, I spotted it early on and posted about it.

New Chelsea First Team Coach Steve Holland has basically re-iterated this point in an interview featured on the BBC. He said:

"We have worked hard on the transitional element of our play. When we lose the ball we are trying to regain possession as quickly as possible so we can get into defensive positions early. We have been working hard on that and we're trying to control the game with possession.

"We've played 4-3-3 and a couple of games where we've reverted to a diamond, so that won't be too dissimilar to what we've seen in previous years. The pressurising and the application of the players out of possession has been highlighted more in this pre-season than previously but, in the end, we have good quality players in every position.

Andre likes his football played with style and skill. His Porto team of last year played their offensive football and scored lots of goals but also had a big emphasis on what they were doing out of possession as well and I think that will be no different here.

We have lots of fantastic players and I'm sure they'll enjoy working in the system Andre sets up."

I really have noticed the difference pre season, have you people? If we can successfully implement this style of play in the Premier League that we could really see us having an advantage in games. I can't see defenders being comfortable with the ball at their feet under pressure and will be forced into making mistakes.

Let's just sit back and see what happens on Sunday against Stoke. It will be a difficult test but if we can put pressure on the man with the ball at his feet in his own half, we could see Chelsea get a big big three points to get the season under way.

KTBFFH

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