PA PhotosRafa Benitez: Has made Chelsea solid at the back

Chelsea have made a habit of searching for the holy grail over the years. A seemingly unobtainable prize always the target for successive managers.

The elusive chalice has take on many forms. For several seasons it was simply a piece of major silverware as the trophy drought since winning the European Cup Winners Cup in 1970 extended past the 20 year barrier, before ending in a deluge of medals following the pivotal victory in the 1997 FA Cup final.

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Sights were then set higher with a maiden Premier League title the main objective with the close call in 1999 put to bed in a dominant 2004/05 campaign. The focus then shifted to the Champions League and following several unsuccessful bites of the cherry, nirvana was achieved on a balmy May night in Munich.

Now a new incarnation of the grail has emerged. A more humble and pragmatic one: the perfect balance between attack and defence. This grail might be infinitely less glamorous than its predecessors but its discovery is equally as important to the immediate future of the club. After a start to the season that saw three wins on the bounce with eight goals scored and just two conceded, it appeared as if the balance had been struck immediately but life since then has been less straightforward.

The porous defence and virtuoso attack of the last days of Roberto Di Matteo's tenure has been replaced with Rafael Benitez's more pragmatic approach of ensuring everything is ship-shape at the back before committing men forward. The two most obvious changes that the new man has made has been in the personnel selected in the back four and the use of his full-backs. Branislav Ivanovic has been installed as the lynchpin of the defence in the absence of John Terry and his nascent partnership with David Luiz appears to be blossoming. The pair have not a put a foot wrong over the past two matches which is a far cry from the defensive performances of recent weeks.

Their job has been made all the easier now that that Benitez has curbed the attacking intentions of those to either side of them. Ashley Cole and Cesar Azpilicueta have been excellent in those same matches but they have been sitting much deeper in the mould of full-backs of yesteryear rather than as auxilliary wingers offering the de facto width that is otherwise absent. While those tweaks have delivered two clean sheets in a row, it has also had a hugely negative impact on the team as an attacking force. You could count on one hand the amount of chances created by Chelsea against Manchester City and Fulham and you would struggle to describe any of those as clear-cut. The narrow perspective of the team without marauding runs down the flanks has made Chelsea rather predictable going forward and they have been blunted as a result.

With one aspect of the team flourishing at the expense of the other, it would appear that the two facets are mutually exclusive. However, one only has do look back to the halcyon days of Jose Mourinho's time in charge for the perfect marriage between defence and attack. At the time an image of the club was cultivated by the press and rival fans as one of dour pragmatism that lacked the sparkle of Arsenal or the dynamism of Manchester United. The truth was that the team defended and attacked as a unit and as a result was capable of both blowing opposing teams away and grinding out gritty 1-0 wins. A total of 144 goals scored during Mourinho's two title winning campaigns with just 37 in the goals against column during that same period is all the statistical analysis you need to show that the team was functioning beautifully at both ends of the pitch.

Fast forward a few years and while Di Matteo's team slowly disintegrated at the back, it was in stark contrast to how his team played in the last campaign in the Champions League. Clearly the onus was on him to inject a greater fluidity going forward with the array of silky summer signings but it should be noted that he did not always send his team out with a cavalier attitude this season. The 0-0 draw at QPR was the product of a starting eleven that contained Ramires and Ryan Bertrand, a move that was heavily criticised by supporters and observers alike. The manager responded by introducing Oscar into the first team picture, starting the Brazilian alongside Juan Mata and Eden Hazard for the first time in the very next fixture at home against Juventus. The handbrake well and truly removed. The instant success that was achieved - at least from an attacking perspective - was too seductive, too mesmerising to even contemplate another way forward.

That gamble ultimately cost Di Matteo his job as he sought to outscore rather than out-think the opposition. That roll of the dice was always doomed to failure with the squad bereft of a potent striker. Benitez's current quandary is that he is even more reliant on a deadly marksmen if the paucity of chances created is to continue. That is not to say that the season's travails and the failure to find the holy grail should all be laid at the feet of Fernando Torres though even his most staunch admirers would admit that his inertia has been costly to the team.

Some smart business in January from the new manager and a few more weeks of familiarity with his new players should hopefully see the equilibrium hove into view. But it might just get worse before it gets better with a tough trip across London to a West Ham United side that has lost just once at home in the league this season looming large on the horizon.

Follow Phil Lythell on Twitter @PhilLythell

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