The crazy stat which shows how much better Chelsea are against good teams | OneFootball

Chelsea’s issues beating teams who sit deep have haunted them for a while, and the stats show it pretty clearly.

Chelsea dropped points against Leeds and then Burnley in their two most recent games, immensely frustrating performances which saw the Blues ahead and comfortable before eventually capitulating.

Those four points lost could prove crucial come the end of the season as we hit the run in. Both games had similar patterns, with the Blues unable to break down deep-lying opposition, and then making mistakes at the back.

It’s an issue we’ve seen repeated, and the Athletic’s piece about our run in made some interesting observations about our performances against teams who come out and play compared with those who sit deep.

Chelsea unable to break teams down with sustained possession

Chelsea’s performances against teams with greater and lesser possession share, image from the Athletic.

As you can see in the graphic above, Chelsea get far more points in games where they have less than 60% possession. They score more, they concede fewer. Clearly their strengths are enhanced in open games, while in matches where they’re trying to break teams down they struggle.

That’s how we’ve gone through a season without beating a single one of the promoted teams at home, despite two of them being pretty awful. We need to fix it – but time has almost run out. We hope Liam Rosenior has something up his sleeve and is working on it this week in training.

In other news…

Reece James has developed as a leader on and off the pitch, and Omari Kellyman has spoken about how inspired he’s been by the captain.

Chelsea have the toughest run in of anyone in the Premier League, and we’re really worried about our Champions League chances.

Check out the latest edition of Simon Phillips’ SPTC podcast here: