ANALYSIS: Shambolic midfield to blame for Chelsea's lame display against Palmeiras

Chelsea went into the FIFA Club World Cup final as the favourites against South American champions, Palmeiras but the Blues failed to live up to that tag during the match.

Thomas Tuchel's team won what was a tight final 2-1 after extra time but the result does not excuse their poor performance especially in regulation time.

The European champions dominated the possession but in truth, Palmeiras controlled the game especially in the second half and only allowed Chelsea to knock the ball around in non-threatening areas of the pitch.

Surely both teams came into this game with a specific game plan but only Palmeiras' was obvious over the 90-minute period, Chelsea looked bereft of ideas and at times felt like they were just hitting and hoping.

Palmeiras on the other hand knew exactly what they were doing and the players executed coach Abel Ferreira's plan effectively for the most part.

The plan in question was simply to let Chelsea have the ball at the back but choke the midfielders with non-stop pressure so there was no outlet in the middle.

This forced Andreas Christensen, Thiago Silva and Antonio Rudiger to attempt multiple long forward passes, looking to bypass their own midfield and find the attackers with balls which often ended up with Palmeiras. 

The idea was to stop Chelsea from creating for as long as they possibly could while they looked for an opportunity on the break. This was not a typical deep block and counter approach either, Palmeiras won the ball in dangerous areas high up the pitch a few times and created chances from that.

N'Golo Kante and Mateo Kovacic who are usually ironclad in midfield were dispossessed a combined five times, the former had what was arguably his least impressive game in a Chelsea shirt.

Chelsea's inability to control the midfield ultimately led to a tame display, if only they had a renowned deep-lying playmaker, who was nominated for the Ballon D'or solely based on his press resistance and ability to dictate play… oh wait, they did? Only Thomas Tuchel can explain why Jorginho remained an unused substitute.

In the absence of midfield creativity, it was only natural that Chelsea shifted that responsibility out wide but both wing-backs, Cesar Azpilicueta and Callum Hudson-Odoi had underwhelming games offensively. 

Not to single them out, the whole team did not perform up to expectations but it certainly felt like they could have produced more in this game. Hudson-Odoi did impact the game though, his cross was headed home by Romelu Lukaku in the 55th minute to open the scoring.

The Chelsea goal was not a product of any tactical pattern, it was literally just a decent cross met with a one-off header that could be described as against the run of play.

It felt only right that Palmeiras got their own one-off chance, albeit a harsh penalty which was awarded by the intervention of VAR and converted assuredly by Raphael Veiga in the 64th minute.

Thomas Tuchel lost the tactical battle in this one and failed to react quick enough to correct it. Late substitutes Timo Werner and Hakim Ziyech injected new life into the Chelsea wide areas and looked menacing in extra time which begged the question; why was it left so late?

Luckily for Tuchel, his rather uncharacteristic tactical gaffes did not end up costing Chelsea the ultimate prize, Kai Havertz's penalty late into extra-time proved the difference between the gold and silver medals.