The mainstreaming of expected goals (xG) and Jermaine Jenas’ 2017 schooling at the hands of Frank Lampard and Alan Shearer should have ended any notions of possession as a revealing stat. But here we are.
81. 913. 173. 92. No, we’re not preparing for a Lost reboot. Those numbers come from Chelsea’s acclaimed statistics in their win over Newcastle. In order: possession, total passes, Jorginho’s passes, pass completion. However, two much smaller numbers tell a much more significant story about the game and should give the proper perspective going forward: 3 and .68 – Chelsea’s shots on target and expected goals (not including the penalty).
Chelsea’s xG against Newcastle was their fourth-lowest since the beginning of last season. The Blues had a .66 xG in both fixtures against Leicester City. They won the first game 2-1 with 60% possession, and had a scoreless draw in the second with 55% possession.
But the infamous game against Manchester City is the most important comparison. Relative to Sunday’s game, Chelsea’s role was reversed. Against the presumptive champions, Chelsea were the team sitting deep in a tight low block of two defensive lines.
Newcastle were arguably set up better for the counter-attack than Chelsea were that day in early March. Newcastle had Salomon Rondon as their striker, and he stayed just off the Blues’ centre-backs and near the midfield line in the hope of catching an outlet or clearance. Chelsea, on the other hand, used Eden Hazard as a false-nine and kept him level with City’s defensive line. He was not involved with the defensive wall, but he was not in an advantageous position to start a counter.
Chelsea’s expected goals against Manchester City were .05, with 29% possession. City mustered .92 xG, about 35% more than the Blues had against Newcastle. This, though, despite the Blues having 10% more possession against the Toons than City had at the Etihad.
But wait a second. Didn’t I start this post by saying possession is a useless metric for assessing creation and predicting outcome? Then why do I keep bringing it up? To highlight just how useless it is.
Chelsea’s four lowest expected goal counts of the last 12 months came with their highest possession of that span, the lowest possession of that span and with two servings of the most bang-average possession you can imagine. And of those four games Chelsea won two, lost one and drew one.
As far as correlations go, possession does not give a good one.*
Chelsea had an immense amount of possession and passing against Newcastle. At various points in the game they were on record pace. But they did not do much more with the possession than they have against other counter-attacking teams happy to sit back, absorb pressure and hope to nick a goal on the break. All those extra passes did not add up to much more than they had in a couple go-arounds with the Foxes. In fact, the Blues’ chance creation was closer to the game in which they were that low-block counter-attacking team than most of the games when they had an average amount of the ball.
A large part of Chelsea’s lack of creation was their inability to crack Newcastle’s block. Rafael Benitez and his men deserve a lot of credit for that. The low block is not a magic formula. It only takes one player to shut off for one second for the whole thing to crumble (see also: Luiz, David; Christensen, Andreas). But the Blues had no solutions.
Chelsea did not complete a single through-ball, and only three crosses found their target. This indicates the team were not drawing Newcastle out of position and were not creating local overloads, two things that can open up space for either form of pass behind the lines. As Travis explains in a nearby article, Chelsea misused Eden Hazard and Hazard made unproductive choices about where he would receive the ball and how he would dribble.
Conversely, Newcastle allowed Chelsea to inflate their pass and possession numbers. Newcastle made few efforts to disposses the ball, recover their clearances or prolong their few bouts of possession. The absences of Jonjo Shelvey and Kenedy certainly factored into these decisions. But the Blues did not have to work very hard for their passing or possession. They pressed well to reclaim the ball, but in general Newcastle let them have it, and fought Chelsea on the battlefield of creation rather than retention.
Antonio Conte warned that his Chelsea sides would have to suffer with or without the ball. Perhaps without telling anyone, Maurizio Sarri dropped the latter circumstance but kept up the suffering and frustration. Conte was criticized both for not pursuing offensive opportunities and for not being clinical in finishing those chances Chelsea had. Sarri has the team pursuing chances, but they did not even reach the point against Newcastle where clinicality becomes a factor.
Games are not won and lost on possession any more than they are on aesthetics. While Chelsea learn to play under Maurizio Sarri, Chelsea fans must learn how to grade the results. Else they will follow Jermaine Jenas down a path of irrelevant statistics, meaningless records and not knowing how and why things got to where they are.
*Come back during the international break. We’ve got the data viz all planned out, just need to pull it together.