22 G/A walking out the door – why Joao Pedro must smash career best this season | OneFootball

Football is a game of fine margins, both within games and in seasons.

A few goals here and there give or take away a few crucial points. And those crucial points mean positions at the end of the season.

Scoring a few more and conceding a couple fewer may not seem like a lot, but it can be the difference between winning the title or not, or qualifying for the Champions League or not.

Chelsea look to score more; concede fewer with new additions

Joao Pedro warms up for Chelsea. (Photo by Luke Hales/Getty Images)

Enzo Maresca’s team only need to tweak a few things to swing things in their favour, and a lot of their transfer activity this summer should be focused on those marginal gains.

Pundit CFCCentral made that exact point on the London is Blue podcast this week, looking at the business we’ve done so far:

“We can improve on the Premier League goals we scored last season at 64. The season before that, under Mauricio Pochettino we scored 77. Joao Pedro hasn’t crossed 5 non-penalty goals in his [top flight] senior career so far. You demand he’s going to make double digits if he’s going to be a regular starter.”

You can see him speaking in the clip embedded here:

Joao Pedro will have to step up right away

Joao Pedro looks ready to make that jump – but he will have to, as a lot of last season’s goal and assist providers have left or are leaving:

“There’s 10 G/A from Madueke [leaving], 7 G/A from Sancho… 5 from Nkunku. Those are numbers that you cannot maintain, you can build upon, and then go from 64 to goals to maybe closer to 65, 67.”

Jamie Gittens and Estevao Willian are also coming in to take up the slack – but they’re less experienced than the players they’re replacing, and we can’t necessarily count on them to hit the ground running.

JP looked superb in the Club World Cup, but as the most experienced new addition we will need him to shine right away to avoid taking a step back in attack.