Chelsea close in on top teams in key stat; already beating Arsenal in chances created | OneFootball

We’ve reached the international break, a quarter of the way through the season, a great moment to check in on the important stats and how various Blues are getting on.

Chelsea climb the table in important categories

Malo Gusto scores for Chelsea. (Photo by Steve Bardens/Getty Images)

The most simple and effective advanced metric for seeing how good a team is to look at their xG difference – the quality of chances they give away compared to the quality they create.

Arsenal are top with a ridiculous +12.8. Chelsea are up third after a great game against Wolves where they gave up almost nothing and scored three. That’s great going for Enzo Maresca’s team, but the fact they’re on +6.9 shows just how far off the Gunners the rest of the league are right now.

In terms of pure xG, we’re top of the league. The reality is that Arsenal are so dominant in games they simply don’t need to attack and shoot as much as we do, but it’s still never a bad table to be at the top of. In xG against, we’re way down in 8th. That needs improving, but the combination of Wesley Fofana and Trevoh Chalobah at the back already looks to have improved things for us, and hopefully we can climb that list too.

All in all, the stats are are going in the right direction.

In other news…

Joe Shields is still apparently a believer in Ishe Samuels-Smith, who is finally starting to make an impact in the Championship on loan to Swansea after a difficult summer for the 19 year old.

Pedro Neto is one of the senior players in this group now and he delivered like one with a great outing against his former team Wolves. He talked through the reasons he thought his team had been able to get the win.