Chelsea Ladies are riding on the hottest streaks. Progressed against Bayern Munich in Women's Champions League. 9 wins, 1 draw and only 1 lost this season so far. There is a great deal of quality depth outside of the first team currently at the club. Really hardworking squad with plenty of players willing to put in the required effort. Double bolting their defence with solid back three, they score average 2.9 goals per game that means they are the highest scoring team in their league without any doubt. I'm fortunate to watch the team play every week.

Team Traits

-Packing in

Generally, Chelsea Ladies are a closely knitted group of players who often display high levels of individual and collective teamwork. This trait was typically seen in the game against Bayern Munich as I mentioned in the previous post. By dropping off the attackers, they mark all the players respectively and cut out all the passing lanes with an extra protection on the back. They pack in their players into the shadowed area in the graphic below. Not easy to break down the block.

If you see the picture of Atletico Madrid packing in, you can easily to identify that Chelsea Ladies' cohesion when defending is extraordinary.

-Lethal Finishers

Recording average 4.2 goals in the league games, their attacking form is incomparable to other teams. There is an outstanding standard of crossing, passing and finishing quality amongst this group of players. Eniola Aluko, Crystal Dunn, who was in impressive in the games against Rosengard, and Claire Raffertycan are capable of dribbling past the opponent with ease. Maria, Bachmann and Ji have different type of dribbling compared to them. They can carry the ball forward, or I'd say they can run with the ball and drag opponents to create space for team mates.

Both in organised phase and transitional phase, they boast various ways to find the net.

Here are some examples extracted from two games against Rosengard.

In this clip, as mentioned above, Maria Thorisdottir carry the ball to the edge of the box dragging opponents, and pass it to Ji. She also can cross with both feet. This pattern was seen many times. In any attacking situation, Ji often positions in front of the defenders. The second goal at home came from the same pattern. Here is the clip of it.

In transition phase, players run into the space behind an opposition.

In organised phase, there are mainly three ways to advance. I attach graphics for each situation. In graphics, the scenario is that they've gained a goal kick and start attacking from the GK, facing an opposition in a 4-3-3.

1. Pass it to wing backs. Then lay it off to a midfielder. Pass it to the space behind full backs. Cutbacks.

2. Launch a long pass to strikers. (long ball)

3. Wing backs dribble past the opponent or cut in.

This is Thorisdottir's typical movement. Some players such as Dunn can simply take on the opponent.

-Show Inside

In Rosengard's game, Chelsea Ladies show the opposition inside when pressing high up.

The reason they did it is that they fielded players with height in the middle of the pitch.

-Space in the middle

Chelsea Ladies are really collective and a physically strong squad with little to worry about in that department. But, sometimes this slightly impact player positioning negatively in the game. Working as a unit, they can accidentally gather and close down one player, which means they leave some players behind them at the same time. That can cause for them. In the last clip of four, how they closed down the opposition in the games appears clearly.

Great examples of defending cutbacks and crosses are Napoli.

They shut down near side, far side and the pocket by positioning diagonally.

-CK

One hand raised= Short corner kick. The kicker, Bachmann, pass it short to Ji.

Both hand raised= Corner kick to far post with Gilly Flaherty getting into the box.

In both corner kicks, Ji take position near the ark.

Mjerde and Cuthbert stand near on the edge of the penalty box.

-Throw In Variations