Joao Felix leads Chelsea in important stat which Pochettino struggled with | OneFootball

Chelsea a year ago had plenty of talent in the team – and in fact had many of the same players that were used in our win against Leicester on Saturday.

What has changed since then is an increase in the quality of the individual performances, with players like Nicolas Jackson and Moises Caicedo going to a new level since then. There’s also just more fight and more commitment in this team than there was a year ago, when they all looked very tentative and hesitant as Mauricio Pochettino tried to get them to buy into his intense style.

Saturday’s stats illustrate how Enzo Maresca has been able to unlock that fighting edge. Just look at the duel stats: they show a stark difference between the two teams.

Top of the list is a Leicester player – Bilal El Khannouss attempted a valiant 16 duels, although he only won 6 of them, according to SofaScore’s numbers.

After him, the next 7 players in the list of duels attempted are Chelsea players. Joao Felix, Marc Cucurella, Wesley Fofana, Noni Madueke, Enzo Fernandez, plus Jackson and Caicedo, all competed in and won more than the second Leicester name on the list.

Benoit Badiashile heads the ball clear. (Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images)

Leicester sack coach after limp performance

Perhaps it should be no surprise then, that Leicester’s manager from the game, Steve Cooper, was sacked yesterday afternoon. He didn’t need to beat us, he just needed to make his team compete, and that simply didn’t happen.

As for Chelsea – when you’ve got Joao Felix leading the way in terms of duels competed and duels won, you know you’re doing something right. Maresca has this team fired up, and even after an international break they came in all guns blazing. Now they have a full week to rest the first team, then go again.