Fabregas Flopped

Cesc Fabregas failed to protect Chelsea defence - Alan Shearer

I was shocked to see how open Chelsea were in the first-half of their defeat by Manchester City on Sunday.

For a team whose title success was built from the back last season, I had been surprised at how poor the Blues were defensively in their opening-day draw with Swansea.





 

I was expecting a big improvement from them at Etihad Stadium but, if anything, in terms of the protection they offered their back-four and the back-four itself, they were actually even worse.

Fabregas offered nothing in defence or attack

When these two teams last met, at Stamford Bridge in January, Blues boss Jose Mourinho played Ramires in defensive midfield alongside Nemanja Matic and successfully killed the game.

Chelsea's starting XI vs Man City, with Cesc Fabregas alongside Nemanja Matic in defensive midfield 

With Ramires back in the team, that is what I thought would happen this time too, with Chelsea set up to sit and defend and stay tight.

But that went out of the window after about 20 seconds when David Silva played in Sergio Aguero and cut Chelsea wide open.

It kept happening in the first 45 minutes, and part of the problem was that Cesc Fabregas was alongside Matic, not Ramires.

Fabregas did not look like he knew whether he was meant to be an attacking midfielder or a defensive one. He ended up being neither.

Because he was caught in two minds, he was not in position to help Matic when City came forward. Too many times they went at Chelsea straight down the middle through David Silva or Sergio Aguero and it was too easy for them.