Chelsea’s player ratings on EA Sports’ FIFA 21 are iffy at best
By Mike Malley
As a new FIFA game prepares to drop, fans eagerly awaited Chelsea’s player ratings, but were ultimately let down by the inaccuracy of the numbers.
One of the biggest events on the gaming calendar every year is the release of the FIFA player ratings. The top 100 player ratings for FIFA 21, along with a group of select players from top European teams, were released Thursday. The ratings have received a lot of criticism on social media with many fans scratching their heads at some of EA Sports’ decisions. Chelsea was one of the teams whose players’ ratings were announced early, and some of them are truly shocking.
The Blues had five players in the top 100, a decent amount considering how few they had in last year’s edition of the game. Unsurprisingly, N’Golo Kante is Chelsea’s highest rated player at 88. He’s also the joint second-highest rated CDM with Joshua Kimmich of Bayern Munich. The pair only trail Real Madrid’s Casemiro by one overall point. Considering Kante picked up an injury at the end of last season, 88 is a fair rating for him to start in FIFA 21.
After Kante, though, things start to get a little questionable. The remaining four Chelsea players in the top 100—Thiago Silva, Timo Werner, Kai Havertz and Hakim Ziyech—are all rated 85. These are all too low in my opinion, considering every player received a ‘Team of the Season So Far’ card in FIFA 20, but Havertz is the only player to upgrade, while Werner and Silva actually had their overall ratings downgraded.
If those ratings don’t anger Chelsea fans everywhere, the remaining ratings that were released will drive them even crazier. The sixth-highest rated Blue in FIFA 21 is Cesar Azpilicueta with an 84. No offense to Dave, but last season was not his best at Stamford Bridge, and he probably deserved a downgrade from the previous game. Instead, his rating stays the same.
The really egregious mistakes by developers at EA were for Mateo Kovacic and Christian Pulisic’s cards. Kovacic, despite being voted Chelsea’s Player of the Season in 2020, was only upgraded one rating from an 82 to an 83, while many fans were predicting an 84 for the Croatian playmaker. Pulisic’s rating of an 81 is fair in my opinion, but the fact that his card is non-rare is incredible. Coming from the US, he’ll easily be one of the most popular players in the game, and his play after the season restart was tremendous as well, scoring four goals in nine appearances.
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New signing Ben Chilwell’s rating raised some eyebrows, as well. The English left back received an 81-rated card, two higher overall than in last year’s game. Like Pulisic though, his card is also non-rare, which is shocking considering he’s a well-known player with some international experience.
The remaining ratings that were released are as follows:
- Jorginho – 83
- Marcos Alonso – 81
- Antonio Rudiger – 81
- Kurt Zouma – 80
- Mason Mount – 80
- Olivier Giroud – 79
- Andreas Christensen – 79
- Ross Barkley – 78
- Ruben Loftus-Cheek – 78
Some of these players might be playing for different teams once the season starts, so fans should be prepared to not have them at their disposal when playing as Chelsea in FIFA 21. Olivier Giroud has been rumored with a move to Juventus, while Jorginho, Marcos Alonso and Ross Barkley are also reportedly on the market.
EA might still have a chance to redeem themselves in the minds of Chelsea fans, yet. There are a few big name Blues whose ratings have not been released as well. Fans everywhere are incredibly interested to see what ratings Tammy Abraham, Fikayo Tomori, Reece James and new boy Malang Sarr receive. All of them should receive gold cards, while James, Tomori and Sarr’s pace might earn them the distinction of rare.
Finally, the Blues have also been linked with transfers for West Ham’s Declan Rice and Rennes goalkeeper Eduoard Mendy. Neither of these player’s ratings have been released yet either, but Declan Rice will likely have a rare gold card rated in the low-to-mid 80s. Mendy will probably be rated just below 80—an improvement on his 77 card from last year’s game.
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What did you make of the Blues’ FIFA 21 ratings? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter!