“Chelsea Must Avoid This Costly Mistake to Win Games This Season”
“Chelsea Must Avoid This Costly Stat to Win Games This Season”
We love a Monday afternoon look back at the statistics from a game at the weekend, particularly after an international break which left us starved of football action.
This time out we’re looking at one of the more simple statistics (once you’ve got your head around it): xG. The “expected goals” number measures where a team’s shots came from, and how many goals you’d expect to be scored on average from those positions.
Against Bournemouth on Saturday Chelsea had their highest figure in terms of possession of the Premier League season, clocking 66% away at the Vitality Stadium. Yet in total they produced just 0.8 xG, their lowest of the season so far.
There were just three shots on target from the Blues – one from Renato Veiga, one from Nicolas Jackson, and the eventual winner from Christopher Nkunku.
Our other attacking options used in the game: Petro Neto, Noni Madueke, Cole Palmer, Joao Felix and Jadon Sancho, managed just 3 shots (on or off target) in total between them.
Chelsea need a new gear to go to in attack
We were lucky to get a point, let alone 3. Enzo Maresca confessed as much after the game, admitting that while we were unlucky to draw against Crystal Palace in our last game (in which the xG was 2.4 in favour and 0.5 against), the reverse was true in that Bournemouth game.
Conceding 1.7 xG isn’t great, but producing just 0.8 is far worse, and it’s something that can’t be repeated if we want to have a good season. Let’s hope it was just a one off. It’s hardly like Bournemouth are a team that sits deep and keeps teams at arm’s length – they came at us and gave us plenty of chances to attack.
Cole Palmer bailed us out so often last season with a long shot from nowhere – that was never going to be sustainable, and a more consistent attacking pattern is needed.
