What does Chelsea need to fix its slide? | OneFootball

Sitting sixth in the table, behind a third-place Nottingham Forest, a fourth-place Manchester City, and a fifth-place Newcastle, and almost neck and neck with Bournemouth in seventh, is not exactly where Chelsea fans want their club to be.

Sure, it’s no worse than last year’s finishing position, and lightyears better than the catastrophic 2022-23 season that we’d all rather forget. But it’s also a long way from where the club was just a few years ago, when they were consistently challenging for a top-four spot, and even further away from title-winning success like we saw in spades a decade ago.

This trend is showing up in the betting odds The Blues receive from bookmakers too. Betting volumes for clubs like Chelsea remain high thanks to 1xbet promo code offers and deals found by comparison services like TheBettingSites.com, but have still slipped as fewer bettors have confidence in their performance.

Looking at the average implied probability of Chelsea finishing in the top four this season, it has fallen to just 60% from a high of 90%, partially at the expense of Newcastle and Nottingham Forest, who have gone from lows of 10% and almost 0%, respectively, to being tied around 40%. If this trend continues, The Blues are likely to drop behind.

So what needs to be done to turn it around and get Chelsea back to their winning ways?

Addressing Mistakes and Inconsistencies

We are seeing a lot of underperformance from the squad, right across the board. Some key standouts in this regard include Robert Sanchez, Romeo Lavia, Enzo Fernandez, and Moises Caicedo.

In the case of Sanchez, he’s making far more mistakes than anyone would like. The Spaniard goalkeeper is no stranger to having critics at Stanford Bridge. On paper, he’s performing well, sitting in the top half of keepers in the Premier League this season. However, his propensity to fumble has been helping opponents to gain an edge.

For example, in the game against Wolves, Sanchez almost perfectly set up the successful shot from Matt Doherty by dropping the ball at his feet, creating a striking opportunity that no one could have saved.

It’s unclear whether mistakes and inconsistencies like this can be overcome. In these kind of scenarios, the poor form often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as the psychological pressure builds on players.

Too Heavily Reliant on Palmer

This season, Cole Palmer leads Chelsea in terms of both goals and assists. From 23 games, he’s knocked in 14 goals and also been credited with six assists. That’s almost twice as many goals as second-place Nicolas Jackson, and almost as many as Jackson and Noni Madueke combined.

While every club has a leading goalscorer, being so heavily reliant on one player like this can place strain on them, leading to fatigue, and degraded performance.

Jackson has not scored in seven games, a scenario that should have any club asking questions. These are questions that are being asked, too. The powers that be are already browsing the transfer market with some clear interest in Liam Delap.

Delap has been described by some as a “battering ram”, evidenced by his ability to win a good chunk of his aerial duals (about three times more than Jackson) and his preference to make runs. Delap also has a slightly better strike rate, converting 17% of his shots, compared to 15% from Jackson.

Even Delap won’t be quick fix though, so more will be required to fix Chelsea’s inconsistency.

Can it be Turned Around This Season?

We’re in the final stretch of the 2024/25 season now, but there is still time for Chelsea to cement their place in a European competition-qualifying position. These chances have taken a big slide since Christmas after a decent run during the beginning of the season.

With that in mind, we know the ingredients for some solid performances are there, but it’s going to be about working out how to mix them together in a way that cooks up something tasty