Chelsea at the Break

a broken team in serious trouble

We are going to make reports over hopefully all 20 Premier League teams leading up to the return of the best league in the world on Boxing Day. Get everyone all educated, it helps me to do these to understand what teams do and what their players do, hope it does for you also.

Tale of the Tape

No team in the league has as large a gap between their territorial metrics (the last two) and their shot metrics (the top two). Chelsea are in the midst of the midtable in shot metrics, with teams like Wolves and Saints behind Villa and Leeds while looking like a Europa League team and in with a shout at the CL if looking at the territory metrics.

This is obviously due to the enormous efficiency gap at turning territory into chances, where they allow opponents to do so at an extremely rapid clip while being bottom of the league themselves. Every bit of territory opponents progress through has been twice as “dangerous” in terms of goal threat produced compared to Chelsea’s. Basically when Chelsea move 3/4 of the field you expect something like .05 xG, while opponents expect .1 xG from that movement.

Field Maps

A map combining shot production with progression efficiency vs the average PL team.

Chelsea struggle the closer they get to the opponents goal after looking like Chelsea in midfield. Oddly they don’t buildup that well either anymore.

In general opponents are not really moving the ball well or efficiently, they just get a crazy amount of xG out of it when they do.

Pass Clusters

That is the ultimate “low block we are not penetrating” bunch of pass clusters and they happen to be the most common pass clusters for Chelsea overall.

They are set up much further upfield than teams who can’t progress at all (see how rarely the defenders pass back and forth in own half) and they do not cross at all from this heavily trafficked right hand side.

They are a high pressing team, so that makes some sense on this defensive cluster map, but it’s kind of hard to tell an overall story.

It looks like the Chelsea press forces you wide from goalie then vertical quickly, not much DC or CM horizontal movement.

When Chelsea pass the ball around the middle up out wide right, a shot is far away, much further away than a normal PL team.

Chelsea’s opponents generate shots a ton more than you’d expect on passes on left side of their buildup and right side as they cross the halfway line.

Attackers

Nobody here is above 2.2 sh/90 and nobody is high on how often the team gets shots off within 10 seconds of a touch (team shot). Part of that is they touch the ball a good bit, but usually great teams with attackers like that also have amazing efficiency numbers. These guys are noticeably less efficient than Brighton. Here are their attackers ranks among all PL/BL teams (38 teams)

Buildup Involvements: 36th (ahead of Saints and Bournemouth)

xg + xa: 34th (same two + Wolves and Union Berlin)

Progression and Efficiency: 12th-15th, roughly near Fulham, Wolves, Köln

Team Shot Rate: Last, behind Saints/Bournemouth

Not just worrying production, not just a player or two off the pace, not just some finishing issues, this has been a completely broken attack that is functioning like one of the worst in Europe.

Bringing in Auba was an incredibly bad idea and it has played out that way as his sub-Adam Webster xG numbers show.

Midfielders

How high Chelsea plays is shown here by Fofana popping up just 62 yards from goal, where my cutoff for midfield is.

They have lots of different player types in their midfield area: Gallagher obviously is quite unique in he doesn’t involve himself a lot in passing and does not do an efficient job with the ball at all. What he does do is: receive the ball better than all other Chelsea mids and turn up the shot tempo when he gets the ball to an extent far above the rest of the Chelsea mids.

He also has the most buildup involvements and the most takeaways, bar Fofana. It’s very hard to make a strong case against him getting lots of minutes in the Gundogan role, in a team crying out for anything like a Gundogan.

Kovacic is one of the great progressive midfielders in the world, seems a perfect partner to Gallagher while Jorginho has the most minutes of any CM but his statistical profile lacks reasons to continue to play him so much. He seems to bring out the exact problems Chelsea struggle with currently.

Loftus-Cheek seems to fit better as a utility reserve than a guy at nearly 1k minutes already. He has some skills but they are a bit limited for a club like Chelsea.

Chilwell’s collapse as a player after his knee injuries has been sad to watch. Just compare his numbers to Reece James, it’s almost impossible to see efficiency and progression gaps for players who basically play mirror positions.

Cucurella another odd and disappointing transfer, like Sterling and Aubameyang.

Defenders

Silva remains absolutely incredible for his age.

These guys should be viewed with a bit of suspicion with how much danger each opponent attack creates. Well the entire Chelsea team should.

Goalies

Kepa was second in the league in post shot xG saved, Mendy was middle of the pack. Of course this reverses the previous trend…goalies, eh?

Kepa comes for crosses the second least in the league while coming out of his box to defend more than any other goalie in the league. Mendy is roughly average at both.

Pass Combos

Most Progression

Most Shot Buildups

The Rundown

There are very few quality connections on this Chelsea team: Mount can connect the attackers a bit, but the players seem suspended, stuck in their own space and without the required push forward. It’s a big puzzle, maybe the most interesting puzzle of the rest of the season to see how Potter solves it.

It is hard to work out exactly why the danger is so large, opponents do not complete a high % of dangerous passes, they do not tear off a bunch of counters, it’s hard to find a pattern in their possession time, it’s just bad.

I wonder if Potter tries to ease off the high press, which has seemed to leave Chelsea exposed at the back while also not speeding up their attack with quick shots off high turnovers. The Chelsea attack moves in molasses, requiring the most actions in possession to get a shot off of any team in the league.

Gallagher seems a necessary move to change this but the rest of the players need a new way of playing, why I wondered if they go back to a more withdrawn defense and counter. It’s a tough problem to solve and Chelsea are legit in trouble at a season that finishes outside the European spots unless Potter turns things around very quickly.

The Rest of the Season

Just under 20% to make top 4, 63% to make top 6. I think it’s a true battle to make those top 6 spots: Chelsea are in much more trouble than I had assumed once you look deep into the numbers.