Chelsea’s key to success is keeping a box shape… something which Manchester City are failing to do – Danny Higginbotham column

AT STOKE CITY we had something called The Cage.

No, it wasn’t where we kept Ryan Shawcross and Robert Huth between matches!

It was an imaginary square that we tried to keep at all times on the pitch. The square was made up of the two centre-halves and the two holding midfielders.

If we kept that box in shape, we thought we’d be OK defensively.

It is something runaway Prem leaders Chelsea do very well as you can see on their average position pitch map from their win over West Brom. Look at numbers 24 (Gary Cahill), 30 (David Luiz), 21 (Nemanja Matic) and 7 (N’Golo Kante).

They form a perfect square, and that’s with Antonio Conte playing a back three, which keeps things tight but also stops them being vulnerable to the counter-attack.

I said at the start of the season in my first SunSport column that I expected to see two out and out defensive midfielders playing in most teams.

With wing-backs or full-backs pushing so high up the pitch these days, it is vital to have a deadly duo in the middle who can shuffle wide and fill the gap left by full-backs bombing on.

But Manchester City are only playing with ONE holding midfielder most weeks. This helps explain why they have shipped 19 goals to Chelsea’s 11.

Look at City’s average position map against Leicester. No wonder they let in four! Numbers 24 (John Stones) and 3 (Bacary Sagna) are fine but only No 6 (Fernando) is sitting and it’s too much to ask one man to cover both full-backs.

It leaves gaps. It leaves defenders isolated and likely to find themselves in one-on-one positions.

What makes it even more interesting is that in the Leicester match, City had their highest possession stats of the season, 78 per cent. But they conceded the most goals in a single game.

You are most vulnerable to the counter if you have more of the ball and are not set up correctly.

In the four matches in which they have had the most possession, City have won just one. Top was Leicester, second was against Sunderland when they had 77 per cent of the ball and needed a last-minute winner.

They had 73 per cent against Everton and drew and against Boro had 71 per cent and drew.

Chelsea on the other hand won 4-0 at home against United with just 44 per cent of the ball and 3-1 at City with just 39 per cent.

Their highest possession was 67 per cent v West Brom — and they had to work hard for a 1-0 win.

Top teams are always going to have more possession than the opposition so, for them, they are most open to the counter.

So it is a case of concentrating and maintaining a shape when you lose it. You need players who could not give a monkey’s what is going on up front.

There has been a lot of criticism of back fours and goalies recently. But it’s more than that.

Defending as a unit is key, starting from your centre-forward. You defend and attack as a team.

Look again at City’s position map and the huge gap down the left-back channel (the shaded area). It shows no one was covering that wide area.

And where did Jamie Vardy’s first two goals come from? Balls down that channel.

Pep Guardiola is still adjusting to the pace of the Premier League and I still see him as one of the best managers in football.

Counter-attacking rarely happened in Spanish football when Pep was there. When teams won the ball back from Barca they tried to keep it, knock it around, play slowly.

Back to Stoke and, OK, we were never going to be particularly caught out on the counter as we usually had less possession. But we were determined to be mean.

In fact, as well as playing the cage with Glenn Whelan and Rory Delap usually as the holding midfielders, we always had one full-back (either me, Andy Griffin or Andy Wilkinson) staying put so we had a back five at all times.

We would work on it in training against the forwards or against the youngsters. It was all about positioning, keeping the gaps small.

Tony Pulis’ biggest bug bear was getting done by one long ball.

He used to say to the defence: “I don’t want you to give a damn what’s going on up there. If we score you are having nothing to do with it. Your concern is what happens when the ball is turned over.”

And that’s the key: Transition. How quickly you can counter and how quickly you can take up a defensive shape to stop the counter.

Leicester nailed it last season. Chelsea look like they have this term. Man City have work to do.