Two dreadful errors from Branislav Ivanovic gifted Michu and Danny Graham goals as Swansea emerged 2-0 winners in the first leg of the League Cup semifinal. Chelsea had 64% of the possession and 24 shots to Swansea's 5. Despite dominating the run of play, Rafa Benitez's side were left frustrated by Swansea's deep, compact defending. They were guilty of squandering some decent chances in the first half but created few meaningful opportunities in the second after Swansea had gone a goal up.

Both coaches selected strong starting lineups. Benitez selected Oscar on the right over Victor Moses and Fernando Torres was given the start at forward over Demba Ba.

Michael Laudrup started Michu at center forward with Jonathan De Guzman operating as the attacking center midfielder.

Swansea's approach was cautious from the outset, defending deep with all 11 men behind the ball. Routledge and Hernandez dropped either side of Ki and Britton to form a midfield bank of four. Michu dropped alongside De Guzman and the two picked up Chelsea's deeper lying midfielders Ramires and David Luiz. Ivanovic and Cahill were left free and given time on the ball.

In the opening stages Chelsea's three attacking midfielders were able to find space between the seams and create meaningful goalscoring opportunities with quick combinations around the 18. Mata was guilty of squandering two decent chances and Ramires probably should have made Swansea keeper Gerhard Tremmel work harder after he'd done well to burst into the box with a powerful dribbling move from midfield.

The Blues were most dangerous when they won the ball back in their defensive third and looked to transition forward quickly while Swansea were out of position. Once the Welsh side had time to recover into their defensive shape, Chelsea struggled to break them down.

As he tends to do, Torres continued to drop into the midfield and wide to the channels to get on the ball. No one seems to refer to him as a false 9 but in fact that's how he plays. While his movement into deeper and wide positions offers Chelsea an extra forward passing option and allows them to create overloads, it also leaves no one higher up the pitch to trouble the opposition center backs. They can simply sit in and pick up any runs into the box by Chelsea's attacking midfield trio (I wrote about this in detail on Monday).

As the second half wore on Swansea continued sitting deep and left De Guzman and Michu to try to hold the ball up and create an attacking threat on their own. Azpilicueta and Cole pushed forward and looked to overlap Oscar and Hazard as Chelsea chased on equalizer. However, Hernandez and Routledge diligently tracked the Chelsea outside backs. As a result, Chelsea often looked to attack through the middle- David Luiz and Ramires played higher up the pitch as the game wore on- however, Swansea were too compact and too deep for Chelsea to find any gaps to slip balls in behind.

Substitutions
Laudrup brought on Dwight Tiendalli, a fullback, for Wayne Routledge in the 62nd minute. Tiendalli slid in at right back, Angel Rangel pushed forward to right midfield, and Hernandez moved to left midfield. The substitution was made to shore up the right side of Laudrup's defense and prevent Cole and Hazard from creating overloads down that sideline. Throughout the first half Hazard and Cole had combined well to get into dangerous positions down the left. Rangel, a right back used to getting up and down the sideline, tracked the movement of Ashley Cole while Triendalli stuck with Hazard. Cole was unable to make overlapping runs into space following the substitution.

Chelsea introduced Frank Lampard for Ramires in the 71st. In the 81st and 83rd minutes he brought on Ba and Marko Marin for Torres and Oscar, substitutions he should have made earlier. Prior to Ba and Marin coming on Chelsea's attacks were far too narrow- their combination passing was never going to break down such a crowded defense and they needed to become more direct by getting the ball wide and hitting crosses. Ba's aerial threat and physical strength provided the more direct threat Chelsea needed in the final third. Within seconds of his introduction he dangerously flicked a long ball from Ivanovic goalward and moments later got on the end of cross from Marin. It was particularly surprising Benitez waited so long to bring on Ba given Swansea's center backs Chico Flores and Ashley Williams have difficulties against more physically imposing forwards.

Laudrup made his final substitution in the 83rd minute, bringing on Danny Graham for Michu. Graham pounced on Ivanovic's blind back pass to put the game away in the second minute of added time.

Conclusion
Swansea defended deep and were well organized at the back, particularly in the second half. They created little but deserve credit for keeping a full strength Chelsea squad off the score sheet at Stamford Bridge.

The game could have ended differently for Chelsea had they taken one of their early chances but as the game wore on and they were forced to break through a packed defense they were short on ideas. Their attacks were too narrow and prior to the introduction of Ba they lacked someone with the physical presence in the box to get a scrappy goal.

Everton used Marauane Fellaini's height advantage on dead balls and attacked almost entirely down the left through Leighton Baines and Steven Peinaar in a dominant 3-0 win over Swansea at Liberty Stadium.

David Moyes' side set out in a 4-4-1-1 with Victor Anichebe getting the start at center forward for the injured Nikica Jelavic with Fellaini tucked in behind him. Swansea played their normal 4-2-3-1 with Pablo Hernandez given the start on the right over Nathan Dyer and Leon Britton left on the subs bench.

Everton Press
Defensively, Everton pressed the Swansea back four with Anichebe, Peinaar, Fellaini, and right midfielder Kevin Mirallas. Leon Osman and Phil Neville sat deeper in the center of the midfield closer to the Toffees' back four. This created a gap between the four players pressing and the two holding midfielders but it wasn't space Swansea was able to exploit. The high pressing of Everton's four most advanced players prevented Swansea from settling into any sort of a rhythm in the attacking third of the field. The Swans completed 322 passes in the game, just 29 fewer than Everton, but only 69 of those were in the attacking third (21%). Everton were happy to allow the Swansea back four to pass the ball sideways amongst themselves and the Welsh side rarely looked like penetrating into the attacking third.

Everton Attack
Going forward, Everton focused its attack on the left side of the pitch where Baines and Peinaar combined throughout the afternoon with some tidy interchanges. The two accounted for the second and fourth most pass combinations in the game- there were 15 Baines to Peinaar combinations and 14 Peinaar to Baines combinations. Often Anichebe would drift to the left as well, overloading the right side of the Swansea defense while Fellaini would move into the center of the box, offering a dangerous physical presence to feed the ball into. The graphic below shows Everton's passes in the final third. Notice the number of those that occurred down the left hand side.

Interestingly, Everton's one goal that didn't result from a set piece came from a rare counter down the right flank. Fellaini won the ball deep in his own half and found an outlet pass to Peinaar who had drifted to the opposite side of the field. The South African found Mirallas bursting through the middle and the Belgian tucked it home.

Moyes also clearly set out to exploit Fellaini's height on set pieces, as he did in their season opening win over Manchester United. Any free kick the Toffees earned within 50 yards of the goal they'd get numbers into the box and lump it to the back post for Fellaini. Swansea had a miserable time dealing with the tall Belgian all afternoon and the tactic bore fruit for Everton in the 22nd minute when Fellaini won a high dead ball at the back post and flicked on for Anichebe who finished from 6 yards out to open the scoring. Replays showed Fellaini had clearly handled the ball into the path of Anichebe but the defending was poor from Ashley Williams to allow Fellaini to get the initial touch with his chest. The Belgian would go on to score himself in the 82nd minute, heading in another set piece from the left side at the front post.

Conclusion
Everton's four man high press prevented Swansea from getting any sort of meaningful possession in the attacking third. Swansea were entirely unable to cope with Baines and Peinaar down Everton's left side and failed to deal with aerial challenges with Fellaini. In the end the home side was fortunate it was only 3-0 as Anichebe was guilty of missing a couple of very good opportunities. Moyes will be thrilled with his side's performance as they continue their uncharacteristically bright start to the season.