Chelsea: Kurt Zouma’s mistakes the price of desperate last-man defending
Kurt Zouma’s performances and defensive abilities have come under scrutiny among Chelsea fans, especially after game-changing moments against Manchester United and Sheffield United.
Kurt Zouma found himself as the last man against a Manchester United attack on the opening day of his 2019/20 Premier League campaign. Zouma fouled Marcus Rashford and conceded a penalty, which Rashford converted 18 minutes into the match to put the Red Devils a goal ahead. Chelsea Twitter merchants did not hide their disgust at the “clumsiness” of the challenge that led to “gifting” Manchester United a goal. Some fans called for him to be dropped, already regretting not begging David Luiz to stay.
As if that was not bad enough, Zouma scored an own goal against Sheffield United in the 89′ to put Sheffield level in the home game on Saturday.
In the grand scheme of things, the penalty conceded by Zouma on the opening day doesn’t seem to have that much significance, seeing as Chelsea still conceded three more goals – in 16 minutes, no less – in the second half of the same game. Sure, maybe being a goal down demoralized the team and therefore led to them conceding more goals. But if that is the case, Chelsea has deeper problems beyond a defender gifting the opponent goals.
However, the own goal against Sheffield United supports the impression that Zouma single-handedly cost Chelsea the win.
It’s very easy and convenient to blame defenders – especially the last man – when goals are conceded. A lot of “He’s a defender! He should be defending!” takes are swimming around Chelsea Twitter concerning Zouma.
However, many fans have either not yet realized or just completely ignored an inconvenient fact: this is much the same thing we saw with Alvaro Morata.
Their negative moments only arose because they had done everything correctly just to get into that position. Zouma’s incidents against Sheffield United and Manchester United have overshadowed every other action and decision Zouma has made, including those that resulted in positive outcomes. Those other actions collectively show something about Zouma, a very good thing: his positioning.
Their teammates, on the other hand, ventured nothing and therefore lost nothing, but also had no chance of gaining anything.
In the penalty situation against Manchester United, Zouma was the last man, and therefore was already in a position he had a slim chance of winning. He could have decided not to make a tackle, and Marcus Rashford would have been left 1v1 against Kepa Arrizabalaga. He decided to go for the tackle and risk conceding a penalty if not done well.
It didn’t go well. Penalty.
The first thing to note is that Kurt Zouma was in that situation because he was in that position. Blame Zouma? OK, but where was Andreas Christensen? Does Christensen get absolved of blame because he was not at his post?
This is not to blame the goal on Christensen, but to highlight that Zouma was in the position a central defender should be: in the box, making tackles. Sometimes those tackles go wrong. Conor Coady made the same decision against Manchester United’s Paul Pogba. Same outcome. Penalty. The difference? A penalty save, which was in neither Zouma’s nor Coady’s control. If Zouma was not there in the first place, Rashford is 1v1 with Arrizabalaga, probably scoring a goal anyways.
The point is even more pronounced in the Sheffield United game.
The swerving cross from Callum Robinson came with pace, moving away from both central defenders, bouncing. Bouncing. Crosses like that are partially intended to find a teammate, but mostly intended to be difficult for a defender to deal with.
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It was always going to be an awkward situation for whoever was marking the attacker. It happened to be Zouma. Again, Zouma was the man who followed Lys Mousset. Fikayo Tomori was not even close to the ball. Zouma’s marking against Lys Mousset in that position speaks again about Zouma’s impressive positioning. Tomori, again, is applauded for having an excellent game. This rating may have been different had he been the one marking Mousset, but he wasn’t.
Getting to that Robinson cross was difficult enough (impossible for Tomori), dealing with the cross, even more so. From the position Zouma was in, the slightest wrong touch would lead to an own goal.
This is not a call to blame Tomori any more than blaming Andreas Christensen for the Manchester United incident. While they cannot be exonerated fully, it is not. Simply that, just like Alvaro Morata cannot score (or whiff) without getting into goal-scoring positions, Zouma cannot score own goals without being at his post: inside the box, in front of the goalpost, trying to deal with a cross.
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None of this should be taken to mean Zouma has been flawless defensively or that all his mistakes are actually excellent positioning. Yes, Zouma has his faults. But it is telling that he is often the one in the positions to make difficult decisions, because there’s hardly anyone else around.