Joao Pedro role change, Cole Palmer decision – Four ways Chelsea could set up vs Liverpool

Calum McFarlane is without five wingers for Chelsea’s trip to Anfield on Saturday afternoon with the interim head coach admitting the Blues could change shape on Merseyside

“We’ve still got a lot of good players,” said a defiant Calum McFarlane when asked about Chelsea’s injury problems in attacking areas. “(We’ve) still got a lot of players available that can impact football games.”

McFarlane made this comment after revealing Chelsea will be without Alejandro Garnacho, Pedro Neto and Jesse Derry for Saturday’s trip to Liverpool. Jamie Gittens and Estevao Willian are also missing for the game at Anfield with hamstring injuries, leaving McFarlane’s Blues extremely short in attacking options, particularly in wide areas.

As it stands, Chelsea do not have a ‘natural’, ‘out-and-out’ winger available to them ahead of the third-from-last match of the Premier League season. “We’re going to have to make up some of the players we’re missing in different ways, in the way that we shape the team up, but I don’t want to go into too much detail on that right now,” McFarlane continued.

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The only fit (senior) attacking options available to McFarlane at the time of writing are as follows: Cole Palmer, Enzo Fernandez, Joao Pedro, Liam Delap and Marc Guiu. Andrey Santos can also be used as a No.10, but that has rarely happened since moving to Stamford Bridge.

With all of this being said, Bobby Vincent assesses the options McFarlane has in front of him to consider ahead of Saturday’s trip to the north-west:

The expected shape

We usually see Chelsea in a form of the 4-2-3-1, although it very often changes dependent on the side being in or out of possession. If that is the case at Anfield, we could see Joao Pedro used on the left wing – something he has not done a lot of this season, but one of the countless reasons the Blues paid £60million for the former Brighton star last summer was to do with his versatility in attacking areas.

Palmer would then be on the right-hand side, like normal, with Fernandez in the No.10 role behind Delap, who is wildly out of form. The 23-year-old striker has scored just two goals in all competitions in his debut season at Stamford Bridge, and has not struck in more than four months (his last goal was against Fulham on January 7).

The risky strategy

There might be a world where McFarlane chooses to go with two strikers alongside each other. It is not something we see in the Premier League too much nowadays – and certainly not at Chelsea – but given the side’s recent woes in front of goal, coupled with the injury crisis at Cobham at the moment, it could be an option.

Doing that, though, will of course leave Chelsea more vulnerable going the other way. While Liverpool have not been the attacking force they were last season, the Reds still possess several players who can hurt the Blues over the course of the 90 minutes.

The midfield-packer

Following on from that, it might be smarter for McFarlane to put an extra body in midfield. Instead of Fernandez being the No.10, have the Argentina international as a No.8, a box-to-box midfielder who can still bomb forward but have an extra responsibility in a defensive sense as well.

If that is the case, Joao Pedro and Palmer could be the two wingers either side of Delap. Romeo Lavia could partner Moises Caicedo in a match where both of them need to up their level dramatically, with the midfield pair a shadow of themselves in recent matches.

The no-Delap option

Delap hasn’t exactly been setting the world alight in his debut season at Chelsea, so McFarlane may plan to set his attack up without the No.9. If so, the interim head coach could use Joao Pedro as the central striker, with Fernandez in a left-hand side role – not too wide and always an option in central areas – with Palmer doing the same from the other side.

The benefit of this is that Chelsea would have three central midfielders behind the attack in Caicedo, Lavia and Santos. The latter of the three hasn’t really had a sniff in recent weeks but his energy could be useful against a Liverpool midfield that has not been at its absolute best this season.