Chelsea Analysis 2023

Chelsea had a tough start to the season only winning 1 out of their opening 6 matches against Luton.  They drew against Liverpool and Bournemouth and lost to West ham, Aston villa and Nottingham Forest. Since they lost to Aston villa on 24^th September Chelsea have won 3, drew 2 and only lost once. The defeat came from Brentford, the draws from: Man City and Arsenal, and wins against Fulham, Burnley, and Tottenham. 

24 players have left Chelsea this summer and the club has had a change of manager so it was always likely they would have a slow start to the season. Chelsea’s average age of their summer signings was 21 with a large majority of the players they bought in having little to no experience of the Premier league. 

Formations 

In the first few games, Pochettino experimented with players and formations while he tried to find the right balance of the team. In the first few fixtures Pochettino used a back 3 with Gusto and Chilwell deployed as wing backs – similarly to previous management. After the Nottingham Forest game, a 1-0 away loss, Chelsea switched to 4 at the back and have looked much more balanced. The 3-4-2-1 formation they were playing at the start of the season was leaving them exposed and was too heavily reliant on the wingbacks to be their creative attacking options. Since swapping to a back 4 Chelsea have kept 3 premier league clean sheets: keeping Brighton, Bournemouth, and Fulham all from scoring. 

Since the defeat to Forest, Chelsea have mainly operated in a 4-2-3-1 formation or a 4-3-3. Throughout the beginning of this season the players have gotten used to the system meaning the defence unit is better and the players are starting to understand their role.

Style of play 

Chelsea have had 60.5% possession in PL games this season - the 4^th highest in the league. Their highest possession was against Nottingham Forest (76%) and their lowest was against Brighton where they had just 39% of the ball. They play with 3 central midfielders usually consisting of Gallagher, Caicedo and Fernandez, and 2 wingers either side- usually Sterling and Palmer. They tend to have solid possession around the defence, with their defenders having a very high passing accuracy % with Thiago Silva having a 96% passing accuracy – the highest in the Premier League. Axel Disasi has a 92% pass accuracy whilst averaging 82 passes per game - the highest at Chelsea and 5^thhighest in the Premier league. Chelsea have the 3^rd best pass accuracy in the league (88%) with only Man City (90%) and Brighton (89%) being better with the ball. 

When attacking, Chelsea will often move the ball quickly through the central midfielders out to the wide areas, where Sterling especially embraces 1 v 1 battles vs defenders. Once the ball goes wide the other players get into the penalty box. Sterling will attempt to beat his man and if successful usually has 4/5 targets waiting in the penalty area. He did this especially well against Burnley, Luton, and Aston Villa. In front of Sterling, Nicholas Jackson makes runs off the shoulder off the last defender countless times a game. He and sterling link up well using their pace and often hit teams with fast breaks with just the 2 of them. Jackson almost always wants the ball in behind the defender to use his pace to hurt defenders and get them running towards their own goal. 

 

 

Attacking 

Chelsea attack fast and direct. They play quick passes into the forward players and then commit players into the area to try to create goalscoring opportunities. Often Jackson will make a run in behind a defender and then chase the ball looking for a pass to his side for a teammate. Or Sterling will pick up the ball and run at the defender and cross or pull back for a teammate. 

Raheem Sterling was playing a lot narrower at the start of the season than he has done for the last few weeks and was almost playing as a secondary number 10. He did okay in this role however he is much more effective when he has the width and the freedom to run at players. Sterling (73) has the 2^nd most progressive carries in the league after Mitoma (75) showing his ball carrying abilities and putting them to better use now he is back out wide. Chelsea have the 3^rd highest progressive carries in the league with 302 only being beaten by Man City (340) and Tottenham (305) and Sterling is a huge chunk of.

Against West ham, above, Sterling was very narrow and struggled to have any real impact on the game. Sterling is a player that is best when he has the ball at his feet and runs towards the defender forcing them to back off or.

Compared to the game vs Luton where Sterling was given more of a free role / instructed to get wider. In this game he was a lot more direct when on the ball, a lot more involved in the game and scored 2 and assisted 1. When on the ball out wide sterling is an elite ball carrier and dribbler but when inside and asked to pick a pass or not have the ability to run and take on men, he is a much weaker player. Chelsea have the highest take ons leading to shot creating actions in the premier league so far with 28 successful take ons resulting in a shot attempt. A lot of these take ons come from Sterling when playing in the wide positions. Sterling has contributed 11 successful take ons that have directly led to shot attempt.

For a team that often has high % of possession a lot of Chelsea’s best goal scoring chances come from fast turnovers or counter attacks. They have good pace on the counterattack with Sterling and Jackson usually starting up front and Gusto/ James in the RB spot and substitutes such as Mudryk and Madueke. If one of the defenders wins the ball, their first pass is usually into Gallagher or Enzo Fernandez who often look to move the ball quickly through to the forwards. If the forward pass isn’t on, then Enzo or Gallagher will drive with the ball to gain extra ground. Enzo (97) has the 3^rd highest progressive passes after Fernandes (108) and Maddison (97) in the Premier league this season so far. 

Against Arsenal there was 4 pass move from Chelsea moving from having the ball deep in their own half to inside Arsenal’s penalty area. Gallagher takes 2 touches and moves the ball into the central position to find Palmer who also takes 2/3 touches and then moves it quickly onto Sterling on the right side. Sterling takes 3 / 4 touches and then crosses the ball onto the head of Mudryk who heads the ball into Saliba’s arm resulting in a penalty to put Chelsea 1-0 up. The move from Gallagher to Mudryk heading the ball took 12 seconds in total. This shows the speed and directness of the Chelsea attack and is clear that Pochettino has told them when there is space, use the ball wisely and hurt teams where possible. 

Creating chances hasn’t been a problem for Chelsea, they have the second highest xG in the league with 25.2 with only Liverpool having a higher xG with 26.5. Nicholas Jackson has the 3^rd highest overall xG in the Premier League with 7.8 only behind Haaland 12.7 and Salah (9.1). He has recorded 2 or more shots in 8 games he has started in, with his highest total being 6 shots vs Tottenham, where he scored a hat-trick. He has only recorded 1 shot in one of his 9 starts in the Premier League – against Aston Villa. 

Cole Palmer’s regularity in the team is also a key contributor to Chelsea’s attacking threat. He has scored 100% of penalties taken this season for Chelsea, scoring the latest against Man City to earn Chelsea a 4-4 draw. Palmer picks up different positions in different games, he has played the majority of the time on the right hand side of the Chelsea attack with Sterling playing on the left when he is in the team. Palmer adds quality, directness and calmness to the Chelsea front line. With 4 goals and 2 assists in 10 games, Palmer is fast becoming an important part of the Chelsea attack. He has the second highest progressive carries of the Chelsea squad, with 28 progressive carries. He has a pass completion of 82.7% which is in the 95^th percentile for players of his position (attacking midfielder / wingers). Palmer holding the width in the Chelsea right side and Sterling holding the width in the left will cause teams a problem as both players have the ability to beat their men 1 on 1 and both can invert inside for shot on their favoured side. Palmer can also drift inside to a 10 position when on the ball to allow space for RB to overlap into the space and cross into the box e.g Reece James. Palmer is a player than can go 1 v 1, can outrun someone and can find a pass when needed making him a versatile attacker for the Chelsea front line. He has the highest expected assists of the Chelsea squad with 3.0 expected assists this season. 

 

Defending 

 

They often get hit by quick turnovers/counter attacks and operate a high line when in possession of the ball so when they lose it often players are out of position. Both pictures are occasions where Chelsea had the ball and lost possession of it and the opposition countered them quickly and ended up scoring from the chance. This may be down to lack of experience from the defenders in the Premier League / 1 on 1 situation. The lack of experience may also be a factor as to why Chelsea are the team with the most yellow cards so far this season with 40 yellows from 12 games. As the games go on the defensive unit is getting better due to playing time and understanding the system better. This is proven in the fact that Chelsea have conceded the 3^rd fewest shots (89) with only Man City (65) and Arsenal (83) with fewer shots against them. 

There are often gaps in midfield where Chelsea can be prone to getting exposed when on turnovers of the ball. The defence sit quite high when in possession and the midfielders often push high to join in with the attack. This leads to there being gaps in the midfield and big areas between the 3 central players especially Fernandez and Caicedo who often fill the same spaces. 

One of Chelsea’s weak areas is a lack of a holding midfielder. Gallagher, Enzo and Caicedo are all box-to-box CM’s and none of them are really holding midfielders. A lot of times when Chelsea get caught on the break or on a turnover, they don’t have anyone sitting in front of the back line meaning as soon as the midfield is bypassed the defence are being penetrated immediately. 

This picture is an example from the Arsenal game for Trossard’s equaliser. Chelsea’s defence are all in decent positions, however their midfielders aren’t. The pass from Saka could quite easily go into the orange box and Arsenal would be in a very dangerous area. 

			On the first picture is Caicedo positioning vs Brentford when hit on a counterattack, as shown there is a large gap between defence and any of the midfield players. This could be down to speed, agility, speed of attack or defence dropping too quickly. However when compared to Rodri of Man City in the game against Chelsea in an almost identical position, Rodri is on the edge of the box and is ready to intercept the ball into Gallagher or Jackson. Compared to Caicedo who is running towards his own goal not ready to intercept and hoping the ball doesn’t come into the midfield area.

Defending from set pieces and crosses into the box is also a weakness in the Chelsea side, although they haven’t conceded many from set pieces so far this season, in games against teams with good set piece takers/ aerial threats they have struggled to keep up with them. Against West Ham at the start of the season, West ham had 2 corners and Chelsea nearly conceded from the first and then did concede from the second. They marked zonally and didn’t have people in the right place to deal with the swinging in corner from Ward- Prowse. Luckily for Chelsea they don’t tend to concede too many corners – most they conceded was 8 against Fulham. Against Fulham it seemed as though Chelsea went more man to man marking and less zonal marking, this may be something they regularly change dependant on opposition / tactics for specific games. Against Man City it seemed as if they had returned to Zonal marking again. They conceeded from a ball into the box from city rather than a set piece however the problems are the same as with corners. There are 5 chelsea players by the peanlty spot and nobody is marking a man. Akanji gets behind Thiago Silva and Gallagher and has a free header to put City in the lead. They also conceeded from a ball into the box agaisnt Brentford, Mbuemo put a ball onto the back post and Ethan Pinnock had a free header to put Bretnford 1-0 up. This shows either a leadership issue or a lack of positional awareness by some of Chelsea’s defence because it is something that happens in virtually everyone of their matches so far this season.