A query that needs to be simpler to reply than it’s: Are Chelsea succeeding?
For many groups, it is near black and white. Wolves, whom Chelsea simply beat 3-0? Large failure: no wins but, already fired their coach, most likely getting relegated. Sunderland, who simply tied Arsenal and got here into the season with relegation as their almost certainly chance? Large success: They’re in fourth place and barring a complete meltdown, they’ve all however clinched one other 12 months within the high flight.
To render an affordable judgment for 19 of the 20 groups within the Premier League, all it’s good to ask is: Are they higher than final 12 months? Is their efficiency sustainable? And the way does it evaluate to the amount of cash they’re in a position to spend on their squad?
With Chelsea, it isn’t so easy. They’re at the moment in third place, behind solely Arsenal and Manchester Metropolis — however that is sophisticated, in each instructions, by the gamers they’ve used, the gamers they’ve had obtainable, the issue of their opponents, their UEFA Champions League efficiency, and the colour of the cardboard the referee decides to slide out of their pocket.
– Marcotti: Man Metropolis add to Liverpool’s woes, Lewandowski lifts Barça, Arsenal surrender objectives
– Olley: Arsenal’s switch plans: Will Gunners stick or twist in quest for title?
– O’Hanlon: Predicting the remainder of the Premier League season: How all 20 groups will end
The entire above makes it actually onerous to know whether or not Chelsea’s efficiency needs to be thought of a hit, and that is earlier than we even get into the bigger, complicating query.
We all know what nearly each different workforce is making an attempt to do: win as many video games as potential. However with Chelsea, it is onerous to know whether or not they’re succeeding as a result of it is nonetheless onerous to know what they’re even aiming to do.
Let’s check out 9 numbers that assist make some sense of Chelsea’s season, and what their future holds.
80 possessions
Via 11 video games, Enzo Maresca’s workforce is enjoying at the next stage than final season. Within the broadest sense, their adjusted aim differential (70% anticipated objectives, 30% objectives) has improved:
– 2024-25 adjusted aim differential: plus-0.56
– 2025-26 adjusted aim differential: plus-0.72
Unusually, Chelsea have been extremely steady from final 12 months to this 12 months. The broader context of the league has modified — extra fouls, extra lengthy balls, much less final-third possession for the large golf equipment, much less passing for everybody — however not Chelsea.
Their matches final season featured 79.8 possessions per workforce. This 12 months, that quantity has eked as much as 80.1 possessions per workforce. Final 12 months’s quantity was the sixth-lowest possessions-per-game price within the league; this 12 months’s is the seventh-highest price. The speed has barely modified. They’re shifting the ball up the sphere on the identical pace as final 12 months, and their common cross size is nearly the very same — as are the variety of via balls and pullbacks and their share of general final-third possession.
They’re additionally urgent extra successfully and aggressively this season, they usually’re taking fewer photographs however higher-quality photographs — these two shifts are the principle drivers behind how issues have improved.
25 gamers
It is cheap to nonetheless have questions on Maresca’s true worth as a supervisor — and he does like to throw his personal gamers beneath the bus — however he has proved unquestionably he has the power to impart tactical concepts to his gamers and get them to indicate it on the sphere.
That is clear in how related Chelsea’s general strategy has been from final 12 months to this 12 months. However it’s even clearer when you think about he is enjoying totally different gamers each recreation.
After final Wednesday’s Champions League match, Maresca had made 85 modifications to Chelsea’s beginning lineup throughout their 16 video games in all competitions. No different Premier League membership was above 69 (Liverpool). Within the Premier League, Chelsea have 25 gamers with not less than 45 minutes of recreation time. Solely two different golf equipment have greater than 22 — Nottingham Forest and West Ham (24) — and each golf equipment are in a relegation battle.
With so many various gamers making appearances, it is exceptional that Chelsea’s model has remained so constant.
24.5 years
Maybe, then, we will attribute most of Chelsea’s enchancment to this: Final season, they have been the youngest workforce within the league, as measured by FBref’s common age weighted by minutes performed; this season, they’re additionally the youngest workforce within the league.
Nonetheless, final season’s quantity was 23.7, and this season, it is as much as 24.5. So, in Maresca’s first season, he was utilizing gamers who, on common, nonetheless hadn’t hit these peak years between 24 and 28. In his second 12 months, he is utilizing gamers who, on common, have simply entered their peak years. And, nicely, we name them “peak years” as a result of most gamers are inclined to get higher proper across the age of 24.
But when Chelsea have constructed a roster of gamers who may all enhance without delay, should not we see an enchancment larger than that 0.16 uptick in adjusted aim differential?
1:02
Maresca: I used to be pleased with Chelsea’s efficiency
Enzo Maresca praised Chelsea’s 3-0 win over Wolves, saying he was happy with the workforce’s show regardless of a combined first half.
145 minutes
Based mostly on Michael Imburgio’s anticipated objectives added metric, which makes an attempt to translate the worth of every little thing a participant does on the ball into the widespread foreign money of objectives, Cole Palmer was the second-best participant within the Premier League final season. He added 11.28 objectives of worth, whereas Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah led the competitors with 13.04.
Palmer has performed solely 145 minutes this season, and he hasn’t featured in a Premier League match since Chelsea’s 2-1 loss to Manchester United on Sept. 20.
3 crimson playing cards
Not solely do Chelsea lead the league with three crimson playing cards, however two of these crimson playing cards have come fairly early in matches. Within the loss to Man United, goalkeeper Robert Sánchez was despatched off after 4 minutes. And middle again Trevoh Chalobah was despatched off with 40 minutes left in a match with Brighton; Chelsea have been up 1-0 and misplaced 3-1.
Chelsea have performed a lot of the season with out their greatest participant, they usually’ve performed a big chunk of the season with out as many gamers as their opponents. Given all of that, their modest-looking enchancment seems to be much more spectacular.
Put Palmer again on the market, let Chelsea play the remainder of the season with 11 males, and will this be a workforce that challenges for a title?
0 objectives for, 5 towards
There’s not a lot proof that previous crimson playing cards predict future crimson playing cards at a workforce stage. Typically, when a workforce will get a cluster of crimson playing cards in a brief time period, we blame it on a scarcity of self-discipline, the supervisor, the tradition, no matter. This isn’t to say that these issues cannot trigger crimson playing cards to occur, however slightly: In the event that they do, one thing nearly at all times modifications and people crimson playing cards nearly at all times cease taking place.
Chelsea would possibly get extra crimson playing cards this season, however I do not suppose they’re extra more likely to get extra crimson playing cards than every other workforce within the league. And if we take away the time performed down a participant from the information, then it seems to be like there is a Massive Three within the Premier League — solely as an alternative of Liverpool, it is Chelsea becoming a member of Arsenal and Manchester Metropolis.
Besides, that lets Chelsea off the hook. They have been horrible after they’ve performed down a person. They’ve scored zero objectives and conceded 5. Groups that play down a person within the Premier League have produced an adjusted aim differential of minus-0.56 per recreation since 2009; Chelsea, this season, are at minus-1.28. That is worse than Burnley’s worst-in-the-league, all-games-included mark.
0.38 anticipated objectives
Via 4 Champions League matches, Chelsea have created 6.33 anticipated objectives and conceded 5.95, for an xG differential of 0.38. That ranks sixteenth out of 36 Champions League groups. (The chart under exhibits the highest 32.) They’ve eked 12 factors out of these performances — simply concerning the most you would count on from creating almost the identical high quality of possibilities that you’ve got conceded.
Chelsea have performed arguably the hardest fixture within the competitors — away to Bayern Munich — and their match at lowly Qarabag was made a lot harder by it being an away journey to Azerbaijan. However apart from Tottenham Hotspur, who completed seventeenth within the Premier League final season, the opposite English groups within the competitors have all been incredible to date.
3 top-10 groups
Based mostly on the facility scores at Pitch Rank, which cross-references betting odds for each match throughout numerous high leagues, there are at the moment 4 Premier League groups inside the highest 10 in Europe.
Chelsea have solely performed one in all them, Liverpool, and that match was at house. Over the following 27 matches, they nonetheless should play Arsenal, Manchester Metropolis, and Newcastle United twice. And so they even have two extra matches towards AFC Bournemouth, whom the betting markets at the moment see because the 18th-best workforce on the planet.
1.8 factors per recreation
Below the brand new possession group, Chelsea actually have constructed up a formidable roster of expertise. In restricted minutes, 18-year-old Estêvão seems to be like a possible famous person. Midfielder Moisés Caicedo is already a famous person; he is enjoying on the stage they wanted him to with a purpose to justify the huge switch payment.
Whereas Chelsea’s protection is not what I would name a energy, the again line looks like the a part of the lineup that may most profit from continuity. These gamers are extra interconnected — in how they place themselves with out the ball, how they transfer across the area — than every other grouping. And regardless of just about each defender on the roster getting injured sooner or later this season, which meant the again line modifications almost each recreation, their huge roster has allowed them to remain above water defensively.
Extra broadly, Maresca has been ready to make use of so many various gamers as a result of Chelsea have acquired so many various gamers who’re able to contributing minutes to a workforce that is at the moment in third place within the hardest league on the planet.
Oh, after which they primarily have their very own farm workforce in Strasbourg, who’re owned by the identical consortium (BlueCo) and are at the moment in third place in Ligue 1 regardless of fielding a workforce with an common age of 21.6 — greater than two years youthful than every other aspect in Europe’s Massive 5 leagues. A minimum of a pair gamers over there’ll certainly be adequate to play for Chelsea sooner or later sooner or later.
As at all times, the query stays: Is the aim to win trophies? Or to construct up a portfolio of gamers who may additionally occur to win trophies?
The choice to exchange Nicolas Jackson at striker with some mixture of João Pedro and Liam Delap does not look significantly better than it did in the course of the summer time. The previous is making an attempt fewer than two photographs per 90 minutes, whereas the latter’s No. 1 statistical participant comp in response to FBref’s algorithm is Jamie Vardy, who’s 38 years outdated. Similar goes for sending winger Noni Madueke to a direct rival; his fundamental alternative, Jamie Gittens from Borussia Dortmund, simply does not appear anyplace near contributing to a title-contending workforce. Earlier than his damage, Madueke was contributing a lot for Arsenal, who’re at the moment the favorites to win the Premier League and the Champions League.
Different selections, too, do not converse to a membership involved with maximizing their efficiency on the sphere. Whereas Chelsea allowed the third-fewest objectives and scored solely the seventh-most objectives final season, which may’ve masked the underlying actuality, which was nearly the precise reverse: Chelsea created the third-most anticipated objectives and allowed the sixth fewest. Over the previous two seasons, although, they have not paid a switch payment for a defender who wasn’t a teen or for any participant who can defend the protection. For the entire cash Chelsea have spent on transfers, they nonetheless appear extremely susceptible to an damage to Caicedo, who has performed 4,296 of a potential 4,410 minutes because the begin of final season.
Outdoors of possibly Liverpool, Chelsea will emerge from the second-to-last worldwide break of the season with extra uncertainty than every other workforce within the Premier League. Palmer ought to return from damage quickly, they might cease getting crimson playing cards, they usually could possibly be even higher than they have been over the 11 video games that pushed them into third place, simply six factors again of Arsenal. On the identical time, the harder schedule may begin to expose a number of the frailties we have seen after they’ve gone down a participant or performed midweek within the Champions League.
But, for the entire ongoing upheaval and all of the totally different prospects ready to be revealed over the following couple of months, possibly an important factor hasn’t modified in any respect. Via 11 matches, Chelsea have gained 1.8 factors per recreation. Hold that up, they usually’ll end the season with 69 factors — precisely the place they ended up final 12 months.