The two midfielders who played, Nemanja Matic and Oscar, held solid positions and rarely moved ahead of the ball. Their primary movement was into slightly wider zones, which allowed Cesar Azpilicueta and Branislav Ivanovic to fly forward without Chelsea leaving huge gaps in wide areas. At times, it felt like a 2-3-5 in the attacking phase, with five primarily defending and five primarily attacking. That's not entirely dissimilar from what Pep Guardiola is doing at Manchester City, albeit with completely different players in completely different roles.
Kante remained in front of the defence and recovered from being booked inside the first three minutes for a foul on Andy Carroll (which was surprising, as he collected only three bookings in the entire 2015-16 campaign for Leicester City) to showcase his regular ball-winning ability. He made two successful tackles on Carroll within the space of a minute early in the second half, to huge cheers from the home crowd.
Conte spent much of the first half screaming "up!" at his defence when Chelsea were on the attack, which helped push Carroll away from goal as much as possible. The West Ham striker, for all his aerial threat, offers no pace on the break whatsoever and noticeably slowed a counter-attack in the first half after winning the ball with Chelsea's centre-backs exposed for the first time. New signing Andre Ayew theoretically offered more speed but wasn't heavily involved before departing midway through the first half through injury.
Chelsea's passing was channelled heavily down the flanks. Kante distributed the ball out wide quietly and efficiently, and both wingers looked lively. Willian moved inside into narrower positions and looked to play passing combinations with Oscar and Costa, while Hazard stayed wider on the left and showed glimpses of the incredible acceleration that was so badly lacking throughout 2015-16, dribbling past opponents nine times.