Thomas Tuchel made it clear in the build-up to the game that Middlesbrough, who had disposed of Manchester United and Tottenham in previous rounds, warranted a specific Chelsea game plan to counter their strengths.‘Normally they like to attack over the right side so we need to be aware of it and be strong,’ he said pre-match.More on how his side succeeded in that later, but as the match played out, not only did the Blues deal with the Teessiders’ threat down that flank (keeping our ninth clean sheet in a row against them since 2006 and limiting them to four off-target shots, no big chances and an xG rating of just 0.47), we also mirrored Middlesbrough’s attempted route to goal by scoring both of our strikes with moves down our right-hand side.

Doing our own damage

The two goal-sequence diagrams below illustrate not only that pathway but also how well the Blues played our way through Boro’s expected high press – doing so successfully with the right-hand side of our defence for the first, then using the left side before switching play to the right for the second goal.

Our no.6 Thiago Silva was involved at the start of both moves and the TV coverage’s choice for man of the match was the passing king throughout, making 113 in total, 13 more than anyone else on the pitch and with an accuracy rate surpassed by just one of the outfield starters – Ruben Loftus-Cheek.

Shape shifted

Loftus-Cheek, recently a stand-in centre-back and right wing-back in different games, was this weekend asked to be the anchor man in what Tuchel explained was a 4-1-4-1 shape when his side had the ball, helping to limit the effectiveness of Boro captain Jonny Howson in the middle of the park.

This, rather than the more usual back-three plus wing-backs, meant Malang Sarr as a left-back could concentrate on nullifying danger man Isaiah Jones, their right wing-back known for his attacking runs. Boro did feed Jones – he had their second-most touches – but he was limited to two successful dribbles and no key passes. He did send over the most crosses, one more than Hakim Ziyech’s seven, but only once found a Boro player.Sarr did his job positionally, needing to make just one tackle, one interception and one clearance, and the Chelsea average positions map (dominated by our on-the-ball shape with the Blues enjoying 61 per cent of possession) shows the close support he received from Toni Rudiger.

The right men

Though Mount’s primary station was playing inside of Ziyech, the two were fluid in their running with Mount going wide and Ziyech cutting inside to provide that so-fruitful attack down the our right. Each player produced a game-high three key passes and Mount crossed six times, three accurate, to Ziyech’s two out of seven.The England international was The 5th Stand’s choice for man of the match and his two assists in the game takes his Chelsea career total to 25, nicely matched by his 25 goals to give him a round 50 goal contributions so far for the Blues. He has played 148 games.

Ziyech’s birthday goal was his fifth since the turn of the year, while our other scorer at the Riverside, Romelu Lukaku has scored in three of our four FA Cup games this season.The Belgian likes this competition. That is 16 goals for him across all his clubs since he first played in the FA Cup in 2012. Only Sergio Aguero has notched more.Yesterday, only a sharp goal-line clearance prevented Lukaku adding one more, and his three shots in total was the most by anyone on the Riverside pitch. Two successful dribbles added to him making his presence felt.

When it comes to racking up FA Cup totals, no one has played more games than Cesar Azpilicueta since his first in the Cup in 2013, and he celebrated number 36 with the most defensive contributions by any player on the pitch - two successful tackles, two interceptions and three clearances.Chelsea are on our best winning run of the season – six in all competitions – and just the penalty shoot-out defeat in the Carabao Cup final spoils a sequence of 12 victories in the last 13 games.Next month we will play in the FA Cup semi-final for the fifth time in six years and 26th time in our history.