'Swanselona' had a distinct Spanish influence long before Michael Laudrup arrived in Wales and started signing players from La Liga. However, the Dane has taken that a step further by borrowing a trick from the Barcelona and Spain handbook.
This was the third successive league game when Swansea were officially strikerless. If it brought to mind Spain’s 4-6-0 and the policy of fielding a false nine to mind, Swansea's switch is a little different. They have benched their specialist centre-forward, Danny Graham, and pushed the attacking midfielder Michu into a more advanced role. There is a logic to it: the Spaniard is the club's best finisher and has a pronounced predatory instinct. He is a midfielder who thinks like a striker and, with his higher starting position, is less false nine than genuine No. 9.
The system has stayed the same - 4-2-3-1 – but none of Laudrup’s starting 11 are out-and-out forwards. If Michu is actually less prolific up front - one goal from three games, which is admittedly a small sample size – against five in seven in his usual role – Swansea have halted the slide. The change has brought four points from matches with Wigan, Manchester City and Chelsea.
But the benefit has come in the midfield. As Swansea had more possession and a higher pass completion rate than Chelsea, they reverted to the approach Brendan Rodgers deployed until the January arrival of Gylfi Sigurdsson and Laudrup's summer signing of his replacement, Michu; rather than having a goalscorer at the top of a midfield triangle, they have three players who are passers first and foremost.
And passing can be a defensive philosophy. The change has given the back four added protection, even if Swansea's focus is on keeping the ball, not keeping opponents out. Instead of Michu, Jonathan de Guzman occupies the spot behind the striker, but the statistics illustrate the difference in their games: on average De Guzman finds a team-mate 20 more times per match. His pass completion rate is 13% higher.
Laudrup's redeployment of Michu has allowed him to start with two of his signings, De Guzman and Ki Sung-Yeung, as well as Leon Britton. Each of the trio has completed more than 90% of his passes this season and the South Korean only misplaced one of the 63 he attempted against the European champions.
The other advantage the trio offer is that they allowed Swansea to defend in different shapes. Sometimes they had two banks of four, normally playing quite narrowly, with De Guzman just in front of the other midfielders. At others, he was parallel with Ki while Britton dropped deeper, ensuring there was no space between the lines for Chelsea. By congesting the central area, it explained why Oscar, who usually operates in the middle of Chelsea's three attacking midfielders, was kept quieter than Eden Hazard and Victor Moses, who had more space on the flanks. Rather than pressing, Swansea preferred to retreat, challenging Chelsea to break them down.
It was 4-2-3-1 against 4-2-3-1 throughout, but with both managers altering personnel according to their needs. Chelsea had started with two holding players and, at half-time, Roberto Di Matteo removed one, Oriol Romeu, to introduce a box-to-box runner in Ramires. It was a sign that Swansea were suffocating Chelsea, whose passing was too ponderous, allowing their hosts to regroup. After the interval, Di Matteo's men broke quicker on the counter-attack.
When City then trailed - the result of a corner, rather than any flaws in his tactical set-up - Laudrup took off his holding player, Britton, and introduced Graham, restoring Michu to the role in the hole he had occupied at the start of his Swansea career. He also made a straight switch on the right wing, trading Wayne Routledge for Nathan Dyer. Then, 14 minutes later, Michu made way for Itay Shechter. It was with a little dart into the penalty box that Shechter helped set up Pablo Hernandez's equaliser, opening up space by taking defenders back with him.
More of a forward by inclination than De Guzman and Michu, the others who had played there, he was charged with getting back, and leaving Graham alone in attack, when Chelsea had the ball, but joining the front man as quickly as possible when Swansea regained it.
It is the closest they get to 4-4-2 but the system never changes; it is 4-2-3-1, but with the personnel to make it more attacking or defensive as required. That is something they share with Chelsea, who ended with a converted left-back (Ryan Bertrand) on the left wing and a man who would prefer to be a striker (Daniel Sturridge) on the right and, perhaps, a hint of deja vu.
They had taken a point against Rodgers' Swansea last season, scoring a late equaliser. By conceding one, they got the same result against Laudrup's side. After drawing at the Nou Camp last season, they found 'Swanselona' emulating Barcelona. In some respects, anyway.