Chelsea created a swarm to smother Mohamed Salah

Chelsea used numbers to swarm around and smother Liverpool danger man Mohamed Salah.

Mohamed Salah is used to getting attention these days. Usually, the free-scoring Liverpool forward receives the positive kind, in the shape of plaudits and individual awards for his prolific form in the Premier League this season.

However, Salah received a kind of attention he didn’t like as the Reds lost 1-0 to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Sunday. It’s fair to say the Egypt international received more attention than he could handle from the Blues.

Chelsea were all over Salah, using tight man-marking and numbers to smother the division’s top scorer. Manager Antonio Conte created a swarm Salah couldn’t escape during arguably his worst performance in a Liverpool shirt.

The key to Conte’s plan was having Antonio Rudiger stick to Salah like glue. Rudiger was the right choice for this unenviable task.

Both were teammates at Roma before moving to England last summer. Rudiger not only knows Salah well, his movements and favored runs, he also possesses the pace not to lose too many footraces against arguably the swiftest attacking force on the continent.

An early example of the value of Rudiger’s pace was noticed by ESPNFC’s Liam Twomey:

No team would risk leaving Salah unattended for long unless they were confident in the recovery pace of his marker. Rudiger repaid the faith handsomely, but he was not alone in keeping Liverpool’s No. 11 under wraps.

Left wing-back Marcos Alonso wasn’t his usual buccaneering self. Instead, the Spaniard reined in his attacking instincts somewhat to help Rudiger bracket Salah.

Like Rudiger, Alonso’s pace made him an ideal choice to keep track of Liverpool’s main threat. Salah found himself trapped, unable to find space out wide because of Alonso, who routinely buffeted him inside toward Rudiger.

If Alonso was to the side and Rudiger behind, Chelsea needed a man in front. Conte made sure they had one thanks to the decision to start with three central midfield players.

The Italian dropped wide forwards Willian and Pedro in favor of having Tiemoue Bakayoko alongside Cesc Fabregas and N’Golo Kante.

Bakayoko has been dismal since signing from Monaco in the summer, but he was a colossus on Sunday. The rugged Frenchman was a force all over the pitch, but Chelsea’s plan to negate Salah owed a lot to Bakayoko’s willingness to blanket the attacker whenever he tried to drift off the front.

If it wasn’t Bakayoko, it was Kante who acted as a screen over Salah. The presence of a midfield enforcer in front denied Liverpool’s players the lanes to thread passes through for their star turn.

Having his midfield men stay mindful of Salah was crucial for Conte’s plan. It meant Chelsea could adapt to any position changes.

Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp has been fond of moving Salah off the right flank and through the middle whenever matches are going away from Liverpool.

Yet Salah’s forays into the middle never hurt Chelsea because the Blues still had a two-on-one numbers advantage. When Salah left the Rudiger and Alonso-constructed prison for fresh air, he ran into Gary Cahill and either Bakayoko or Kante.

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Salah never found the space to make his familiar runs or connect with fellow forwards Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane the way he has to devastating effect so often this season.

His frustration became so apparent, the 25-year-old former Chelsea man was booked for diving after trying to draw a foul from Cahill.

Even if he had gotten away from his markers long enough, Salah would have had trouble breaking through Chelsea’s deep defensive structure.

Conte had the Blues’ back three narrow the spacing and play closer together. It meant Liverpool’s forwards couldn’t make the out to in runs they have used so successfully. Those spaces were simply closed off.

Chelsea’s three center-backs, Rudiger, Cahill and Cesar Azpilicueta, also started deeper. By sitting deep, Conte’s defense offset the speed of Salah and Co.

With less room to get in behind, Salah was left to try and find new routes to goal. It was an impossible task since every avenue he tried was populated by multiple Chelsea markers.

Conte and the Blues offered a clinic in how to render a player with 43 goals and the PFA and Football Writers’ Player of the Year awards to his credit a non-factor.

Real Madrid should take a page out of the Chelsea book when they face Salah in the Champions League final in Kiev on May, 26.