Gary Cahill believes Chelsea are still learning the tricks of the trade when it comes to playing in the 3-4-3 formation, the Evening Standard report.
Despite winning three league games in a row since Antonio Conte made the inspired decision to change to a three-at-the-back system, the Blues came unstuck in midweek against West Ham in the EFL Cup.
The consecutive victories in the league, including an impressive 4-0 victory over Manchester United, had provided an instant fix for Chelsea after a shaky start to the season.
However, the defeat on Wednesday night did reveal the Blues are still adjusting to Conte’s new formation, as Cahill suggests.
We can’t get carried away after what happened against Manchester United. We are still getting accustomed to this new formation. At the moment it is proving difficult to play against. We have managed to play out from the back well and if we press high, we can cause trouble with the wing backs. We are leaning as we’re going along but we are adapting the more we use the system.
Cahill looks to have returned to his best under the new formation and scored against United and West Ham in midweek.
And the 30-year-old believes the win over Jose Mourinho’s United was vital for the morale within the squad.
It meant a lot to beat Manchester United after losing to Arsenal and Liverpool last month. There was a bit of doom and gloom a few weeks ago, but you look at the position we are in now, it’s changed again. It’s important that we perform well in big games. Obviously you want to win but the performance against Manchester United was terrific. We are pleased with the last three league games, but we are working on improving the way we play all of the time.
The Blues closed the gap on league leaders Manchester City to just one point after three consecutive victories, having trailed City by eight points in September.
And though few are seriously observing Chelsea as strong contenders for the league title, Cahill believes the Blues can definitely be in contention at the end of the season.
Of course we can be one of the teams fighting for the title. But we are not thinking about winning it right now. All I am thinking about at the moment is being in contention because that is the main focus right now – to stay up there.
But you can see already this season that one team isn’t just going to run away with it. It’s going to be tight, there are going to be lots of changes at the top. It’s important at this stage of the season, in the run-up to Christmas, that you pick up points to stay in the hunt. If we are in a good position then, it will set us up well for the second half of the season.
