Chelsea couldn’t untangle chance creation and finishing among the front three

Chelsea’s attack against Bayern Munich was heavy on creators, light on finishers. The Blues needed more balance earlier in the game to give themselves a chance before Bayern ran away with things.

Mason Mount’s performance against Bayern Munich was a football Rorschach test. Some people saw his five shots and said anyone who can create that many chances against a team like Bayern in a game like that is doing something right, and it’s much easier to teach a young player to finish than to make those chances. His desire to have the ball and the game at his feet is just the sort of good selfishness Chelsea once had with Eden Hazard. Others saw those shots and saw a player overconfident, or maybe underconfident, in his finishing abilities, one who selfishly sacrificed his team for his hubris and poor judgment. If a young player doesn’t see Olivier Giroud in space or doesn’t realize that Giroud can do more with that chance than he can, well, this experiment is running aground.

Mount accounted for 80% of Chelsea’s expected goals against Bayern Munich. Granted, that was .4 of the Blues’ .5 xG: the whole team combined over 90 minutes could only muster one half of an imaginary, er, expected goal.

The remaining tenth of a thing that didn’t actually happen came from Marcos Alonso.

Alonso having an impact on goal stats is not much of a surprise, but in a 3-4-3 with Reece James on the other side and Olivier Giroud as the striker, we would expect Giroud to have the higher xG and Alonso and James to rank higher on expected assists or key passes. Instead, Alonso made one key pass and James made none; and Giroud had the same shot stats as Alonso: two total, one on target.

With Cesar Azpilicueta’s movement off the backline in three phases of the game, Chelsea’s 3-4-3 started to look like a baby steps version of Liverpool’s 2-5-3. Where Liverpool have three false-nine’s (or two actual No. 9’s and a winger, YMMV), Chelsea had a true striker and two attacking midfielders (two No. 8’s, for the numerologically inclined).

Mason Mount’s and Ross Barkley’s positioning, skill sets and involvement against Bayern Munich show that Chelsea were weighted towards chance creation rather than finishing.

Mount normally plays between the opponent’s defensive and midfield line in games where Chelsea have extensive possession, which was not the case on Tuesday. Otherwise, or once the play progresses into the penalty area, he normally plays close to the striker. Barkley, on the other hand, is more of a direct dribbler, long-range shooter or link-up player.

The combination of these two gave Chelsea their hopes of attacking Bayern through the middle, while the wingbacks were there for crosses from the outside. Mount successfully penetrated Bayern’s lines several times, leading to those five shots. But by taking those shots himself, he neglected the narrow division of labour Chelsea had on the pitch.

In their best offensive seasons, Ross Barkley’s and Mason Mount’s goal production is closer to Marcos Alonso’s than to Olivier Giroud’s.

Mount scored a goal every 381 minutes last season at Derby County and one every 270 minutes in his best season at Vitesse. Barkley scored every 386 minutes in his best season at Everton. Alonso, once every 408 minutes in 2017/18.

Olivier Giroud, on the other hand, scored once every 102 minutes in last year’s Europa League; once every 151 minutes in his best season with Arsenal; and once every 203 minutes in 2017/18 at Chelsea.

Not that Chelsea created a lot of chances against Bayern Munich, but they didn’t need to overperform their xG by much to give themselves a bit of hope for the return leg and an amount of respectability in defeat. Mount performed as expected in his main role – creating chances – but either fell short in his auxiliary role of finishing them or in making the decision to shift those chances over to someone whose main role is to finish.

Given how Giroud plays, his low shooting stats say as much about those around him as they do him. The majority of his touches were in the middle third, which means he was bringing down long balls from Willy Caballero and doing his part in hold-up play. But with two excellent crossers on the flanks and two strong, penetrative creators through the middle, he should have had more touches in the box.

Chelsea probably knew they would have the most trouble getting a chance on goal, which is why they went for a creation-heavy lineup. However, the story of this season has been about not being able to finish. If they expect to have so few chances, they need to have a clinical finisher. They have that (perhaps not to the extent they need) in Olivier Giroud, but he needs his teammates to give him something to finish clinically.

Once again, this goes back to Chelsea needing that all-in-one threat, a player who can create and finish in the same play. Frank Lampard brought on his three players who come closest to this ability after going down against Bayern Munich. Willian, Tammy Abraham and Pedro can all work the full cycle, but the game was obviously gone by that point.

Chelsea changed some of the details against Bayern Munich, but the overall plan was much the same as what worked so well against Tottenham. Bayern are obviously much better than Tottenham, so it was a bit of a stretch to expect similar results.

Even so, the work seems to be in the details rather than the broad strokes. Of course, whether you judge that as progress is just another football Rorschach test.