Chelsea already has almost all the little individual pieces needed to score

Chelsea is in a goal scoring rut. All the tools are there, the Blues just cannot keep straight how to use them properly in a game.

Expected goals. Now that everyone scared of those words are gone, Chelsea is a very good team on paper. One might even call them a sleeping giant rather than a faded champion.

Liverpool is running away with the league but they have roughly the same xG as Chelsea. Manchester City is supposed to be miles ahead but they are not really in a title race anymore.

All this is to say that the Blues create a lot of chances compared to the rest of the league. The issue is the conversion and that is why many (maybe even Frank Lampard himself) call for new signings to alleviate the issue. But at least on paper, they already have what they need.

See, the hardest part of the game tactically is creating chances. The more chances a team creates, generally the more they score. More goals means more wins and more wins means more points. It is not rocket science.

But here is the rub with xG; teams that do well generally exceed their xG numbers by a great deal. The champion is rarely a team that is merely matching their numbers.

Chelsea is nearly right on par with where the chances are and that may come as a disappointment to some. It implies that Chelsea is, currently, as good as they will get with goal scoring. But that does not paint the whole picture.

How often does Chelsea play the ball around the box and never shoot? No xG. How often do they shoot only on sure chances? Pretty much all the time. The players themselves are not directly at fault for this, only indirectly.

If Chelsea wants to create “sure thing” chances and will only take those kinds of shots, then the movement of the players needs to be consistent. Several times in recent weeks, Chelsea has gone static in the build up to the box. Lately, there has been a lot of movement in wide areas, but it has only lead to crosses with only one real target present.

There would of course be an argument that better players have better movement or decisions and therefore would improve the side. That is understandably true. But Chelsea already has players that can do the things they need to do. The xG stats show that. There merely needs to be more shots or more consistent movement in the final third.

It is not a new problem for Chelsea. For at least the previous two seasons, Chelsea has suffered from going static in the box and off the ball. Maybe even worse, they have suffered from only trying to score sure thing goals. That is all fine and good, but it is certainly not the type of attack Lampard made his name on in his playing days.

Derby County last year was a side that attacked fast and was unafraid to shoot it long. The Premier League is obviously different and Lampard may have become more cautious as a result, but Chelsea needs more of that flare again. Teams do not exceed their xG by standing back and trying to walk it in.

They do what Lampard’s Derby County did; they blast it from distance and see what happens. Chelsea needs more of that bravery and less of the side ways passing they have gotten used to lately.