Holding Midfield

On Tuesday last week Chelsea played Juventus in Turin and on Sunday they played Manchester City and in both games they did something that I wasn't expecting, from a tactical perspective.

In both games I expected Essien to play in the holding midfielder's position taking over from Mikel but in both cases he played on the right of central midfield. For the first game the team played a slightly more defensive formation of 4-1-3-2 with Mikel in the holding midfield position and Anelka playing further back than he usually would.

But the really interesting game was on Sunday against Manchester City when they played their standard 4-1-2-3, with Ballack in the holding midfielder's position. Theoretically it should be fine because as a box to box midfielder all he would do is play a slightly more defensively than normal, but for Hiddink to have chosen him for this role instead of Mikel surprised me a bit.

So, I got thinking about what the role of a holding midfielder really is, and after some reading and thinking I have found that the holding midfielder has two jobs. First, he is there to stop any cross or pass which may come from midfield to the strikers and will do this by placing himself in the path of the opposition midfielder and the forwards who may be trying to get behind the defence. By doing this the opposition are unable to push any long balls forward, and greatly reduces their ability to counter attack, thereby slowing their entire game down.

The second role is to initiate attacks. In order to do this the holding midfielder has to be an extremely quick thinker so that he may assess the field placement and decide who to pass to so as best to set the team up for a tactically strong attack. He also has to be able to cover small distances in a very short period and would of course have to be able to accurately and quickly pass the ball from any position on the field.

After thinking about this it is clear to me that Essien isn't a holding midfielder. Sure he can play in that position, but he is strongest in central midfield where he can make strong tackles and provide through balls for the forwards.

And while Mikel is effective in his defensive role, his attack initialisation is not up to scratch. Sure he's young and I suspect he'll get much better in this position over the next few years, but Chelsea need someone to fill this position now and think Hiddink may have made the best decision by choosing Ballack.

He can with out a doubt make extremely strong tackles, but his experience is what will make his transition to this role so smooth. Not only will he be able to anticipate attacks, he can start them just as easily as we saw on Sunday.

So, I suspect Ballack will be filling the holding midfield position for a while, with Mikel sitting in the background learning for the next few months.

I don't think Ballack will be leaving Chelsea at the end of the season even though there is talk of the squad being revamped, I do think that at least 5 and possibly even up to 7 players will be leaving at the end of May with at least as many, and probably close to 10 players coming in with a new manager, said to be Frank Rijkaard.

These are the players I think will be leaving: Deco, Mineiro, Malouda, Del Pierro, and possibly Belletti, Ferreira, Anelka and Hilaro.

These are the positions I think need to be filled: Second and possibly third string goal keeper, left back, right back, central midfield x 2, left wing x 2 and striker.

With a new coach coming in these players would be bought specifically for a role and formation and as Jose Mourinho as shown, doing this can prove to be extremely successful.