Alex Keble breaks down the stats to show why Chelsea are heading in the right direction and can look forward to the 2024/25 season.
Chelsea thrashed West Ham United 5-0 last weekend to move above Manchester United into seventh, prompting many pundits to declare that Mauricio Pochettino’s plan is finally starting to move in the right direction.
They are wrong. Since August it has been moving in the right direction.
That may sound like an odd take on a long and challenging first year in the job for Pochettino. But in an industry driven by results, we often fail to spot progress unless there are scores to match and beneath the surface Chelsea have been on track for most of 2023/24.
Yes really.
Over the past fortnight, pundits have been trying to understand how Chelsea have convincingly beaten Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham seemingly out of nowhere, with many even concluding that the absence of Enzo Fernandez explains it.
Instead, what happens is a progression towards the mean. The results are finally starting to match the performances between the two boxes and a young squad – prone to wild mood swings, leading to big dips in form – are finally gelling.
There was a time when Premier League managers were given 12 months to get their ideas across, a transitional year without success. Pochettino, if we look beyond the results, has made the most of his.
Here’s why Chelsea can look forward to a more successful 2024/25.
The points table puts Chelsea firmly in the top four
Opta’s Expected Points (xPoints) table, which is calculated by simulating each match 10,000 times using the Expected Goals (xG) value of each shot, reveals that Chelsea would have finished fourth – bottom of the UEFA Champions League – had they scored and conceded . according to xG.
Table of expected points 23/24
Club | xPoints |
---|---|
Arsenal | 76.45 |
Liverpool | 72,71 |
City of Manchester | 71.92 |
Chelsea | 59.89 |
Newcastle United | 58.13 |
Aston Villa | 52.71 |
This is extremely important. He tells us that Chelsea were regularly the better team in their matches – creating more chances, conceding fewer – but were let down by defensive issues and disrespect in front of goal, two issues that will need to be ironed out next season, as we will. projection.
It is important to note that this is not a new trend. Throughout 2023/24, Chelsea were fourth or fifth in the xPoints table, and almost never more than three xPoints away from that fourth place.
Chelsea xPoints/Position 23/24
Date | xPoints (matches) | x Rating |
---|---|---|
4 Oct | 16.10 (8) | 4th |
19 Dec | 29.89 (17) | 5th |
9 Feb | 38.59 (23) | 5th |
May 9 | 59.89 (35) | 4th |
Unsurprisingly, as the season progresses, Chelsea begin to climb towards their underlying numbers.
They have lost just one of their last 12 Premier League games and are fifth in the table in 2024 form.
PL Table from January 1st
He played | Points | |
---|---|---|
Arsenal | 16 | 43 |
Man City | 16 | 42 |
Liverpool | 17 | 36 |
Newcastle | 16 | 27 |
Chelsea | 15 | 26 |
The stats reveal that Pochettino’s tactics work between the boxes
How do we explain Chelsea’s xPoints performance? In short, Pochettino’s tactical ideas have been largely incorporated… between the two boxes, that is.
Again, you may need some convincing. There have certainly been periods of the season when Chelsea have played badly – as Pochettino has admitted – but that is mainly due to the low self-confidence that comes from poor results, especially for a young team who are just getting to know each other.
But the characteristics of Pochettino’s football, inspired by the straight lines of Marcelo Bielsa, were present throughout the season.
They have: they push hard. Playing sharp vertical football through the lines. dribble directly to the opponent. and developing an aggressive high line.
Chelsea top the charts for balls played, with 107. They are second in attempts to take possession (782) and third in successful balls (358). They are also fourth for forward carries (810) and have been caught offside the fourth most times (83).
In other words, they’re in the top four for the kind of metrics you’d expect from a team of Bielsa’s caliber aiming, for now, to return to the Champions League.
It’s a similar story defensively. Chelsea have the fifth-best passes per defensive action (10.7) and have committed the sixth-highest turnovers (323). They are forward defenders and forwards, which is why they have committed 419 fouls, sixth most in the division.
And all of these pass the eye test. Watch a Chelsea game and they look like a Pochettino side, often moving the ball up the pitch and defending coherently up front – only mistakes in both positions let them down.
Let’s see why this happens and why it can soon be fixed.
Chelsea’s goalscoring issues are behind them
Everyone knows that Chelsea have struggled to put the ball in the net.
As recently as February 9, when we last looked at Chelsea, their goals-minus-expected-goals figure was -7.8, second worst in the division behind Everton.
At the time they had an xG of 43.9, which was even higher than Manchester City’s 43.6, and yet Nicolas Jackson’s poor finishing let them down.
He’s still the third worst player in the Premier League for goals minus expected goals, at -4.1, but he’s trending up all the time – just like Chelsea.
Since the start of March, Jackson has scored six Premier League goals from an xG of 5.9 or -0.1, while Cole Palmer (+3.8) and Noni Madueke (+2.6) have helped restore club balance.
Chelsea have exceeded their xG in six of their last seven Premier League games.
In other words, their scoring woes are a thing of the past, largely thanks to the maturation and development of Jackson and his position on the front line.
In even better news for Chelsea fans, from next season Christopher Nkunku – who scored 36 goals in 59 Bundesliga games in his last two seasons at RB Leipzig – should return for 2024/25, significantly boosting the squad them in the penalty shootout.
Injuries explain defensive problems – and here the future looks bright
To understand why Chelsea have conceded so many goals – 59, the ninth most in the division, from an xG of 53.1 – we again go back to the fact that they are a young team that has had a stunning turnaround in the last year.
This, combined with injuries, has created a shaky back line, preventing strong relationships from forming and inevitably leading to mistakes.
In the Premier League, only Brighton & Hove Albion, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest have had more different combinations of defensive line-ups than Chelsea’s 21.
It’s no surprise, then, that Chelsea have made more mistakes leading to a shot (23) than anyone else in the Premier League, or that they are third in the charts for mischecks (566).
Thiago Silva, 39, will leave this summerbut if Chelsea have better luck with injuries they won’t even need to sign a replacement.
Wesley Fofana – a brilliant young player – has missed the entire season through injury, while the talented Benoit Badiashile has also come back from a number of injuries.
In the goal, we end up with injuries again.
Opta’s Expected Goals on Goal (xGOT) stat – which measures xG based on where the shot is placed on goal – shows that Robert Sanchez, who has not played since December 10, has outperformed his substitute of, Djordje Petrovic.
Sanchez’s xGOT score of 24.78 is almost identical to Petrovic’s 26.56 and yet the latter has conceded nine more goals.
![Sanchez v. Petrovic](https://resources.premierleague.com/photos/2024/05/09/6b202ec3-54e5-4a1a-809d-63470ee944d7/sanchez-v-petrovic.png?width=1400&height=800)
![Sanchez v. Petrovic](https://resources.premierleague.com/photos/2024/05/09/6b202ec3-54e5-4a1a-809d-63470ee944d7/sanchez-v-petrovic.png?width=1400&height=800)
Pochettino will have the full-backs he needs next year
But if that’s not enough to convince you that Pochettino’s project will take off next season, then consider how vital the full-backs have been to Spurs’ squad.
The full-backs provide all the width of the attack for Pochettino, playing an essential role in stretching solid defenses from flank to flank in order to create space in the penalty area. Long diagonal shifts in Danny Rose and Kyle Walker were a key feature of the Spurs side.
Rhys James and Ben Chilwell have been out for most of the season, and although Malo Gusteau has played well on the right, there has been no counterweight on the left, making it easier for opponents to avoid pulling out of the middle.
Chelsea are joint second from the bottom for crosses attempted (515) and accurate crosses into the penalty area (48), while they are just ninth in the league for total changes of play (95).
This arguably explains Chelsea’s No1 problem in 2023/24 – running out of ideas when faced with a low block.
Sorting Chelsea’s Premier League matches by their share of possession, their top 16 matches (64-78 per cent), outlined in the table below, have yielded just 22 points (4 W4 D6 L6), while their last 19 (30-63 percent) have scored 36 points (E11 B3 M5). That’s 1.4 points per game in the first 16 and 2.0 points per game in the last 19.
How Chelsea did in possession
Race | xG | xGA | Poss. % |
---|---|---|---|
CHE 2-0 SHU | 3.1 | 0.4 | 78% |
CRY 1-3 CHE | 1.4 | 0.6 | 77% |
WHU 3-1 CHE | 2.5 | 1.8 | 75% |
CHE 0-1 NFO | 2.3 | 0.8 | 75% |
EBE 2-0 TCE | 0.9 | 1.2 | 71% |
AVL 2-2 CHE | 1.6 | 1.1 | 71% |
CE 2-2 PUR | 4.2 | 1.6 | 69% |
CHE 5-0 WHU | 4.1 | 0.9 | 69% |
CHE 0-2 BRE | 1.9 | 2.2 | 68% |
WOL 2-1 CHE | 2.0 | 1.3 | 68% |
SHU 2-2 CHE | 0.3 | 1.4 | 68% |
CE 3-0 LUT | 2.2 | 0.4 | 67% |
BRE 2-2 CHE | 1.8 | 1.8 | 67% |
CHE 1-1 LIV | 1.4 | 1.3 | 65% |
BOU 0-0 HE | 1.8 | 1.0 | 64% |
CHE 2-4 WOL | 1.7 | 2.0 | 64% |
That problem can be solved with a well-balanced pair of attacking full-backs – which Pochettino may have if Ian Maachen returns from his loan spell at Borussia Dortmund.
Maassen, excellent in the Champions League semi-finals, could break out in front of a Pochettino team, taking on the opposing right-back to help clear those deep blocks out of position.
One more summer and the Pochettino era could explode
Put all this together and you have a team that: understands the manager’s tactics and is fluent between the boxes. in xG they have already performed like a Champions League team. will solve their goalscoring problems through Jackson’s improvements and Nkunku’s return. they have good defenders coming back from injury. and a new back collaboration ready and waiting.
A lot to be optimistic about, then, and that’s before you consider what another training summer and transfer window could do to fine-tune the squad.
Chelsea can still finish in the top six this year, capping off a successful first year in the job for Pochettino. If that happens, people will say that their rise came out of nowhere. Has not.
Wherever Chelsea finish this year, fans can look forward to a much better 2024/25.