Chelsea: James shows his class as Blues get a clean sheet vs. Sevilla

Chelsea earned an uninspiring draw against Sevilla, but Reece James was one of the many Blues to shine on the Champions League night.

Chelsea’s first Champions League match of the season against defending Europa League champion Sevilla ended in a lacklustre nil-all draw. The clear positive to take from the game was the clean sheet, Chelsea’s first in a while. The Blues’ defence looked much more solid with the additions of Thiago Silva, Edouard Mendy and Reece James. Kurt Zouma had a decent bounce back game, but made a few crucial mistakes, like losing the ball when pressed.

In the second half, the Sevilla players often found themselves in a lot of space on the right side. This was a result of Ben Chilwell being positioned very high up the pitch, but more because they were able to effectively switch the play across the pitch with long balls when Chelsea’s defence was overloaded on the left. Timo Werner made all the right runs into space, however, did not get too many real goal scoring opportunities. Barring the clean sheet, the two biggest positives for Chelsea were the performances of James and Mendy.

Reece James shows his class

James was excellent bombing down the right flank. He linked up well with Kai Havertz, who often operated in the right half-space on the pitch. Meanwhile, James went on the overlap, looking for the first time ball into the box.

In terms of passing, James completed 31 out of his 40 attempted passes for a 78 percent pass accuracy. Of these 40 passes, 14 were forward passes, 10 were completed accurately. Further, he attempted five passes into the penalty area of which two were successful. The English right back also completed three out of his four attempted long balls—which is pretty impressive, especially for a fullback. In the first half especially, Chelsea was heavily reliant on James to create chances in forward positions.

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He only won one of his four attempted offensive duels, suggesting he is more of a threat off the ball with his overlapping runs and crosses from deep into dangerous areas. This is further substantiated by his chance creation statistics. Chilwell and James had the highest progressive passes per 90 in the game amongst the Blues players. Further, James had a 90 percent pass accuracy for progressive passes to Chilwell’s 70 percent. In addition, James completed the highest deep completions per 90 (i.e. a non-cross pass targeted within 20 meters of the opponent’s goal). He also registered the highest deep completed crosses per 90 in the inaugural Champions League bout.

Defensively, James was excellent as well. He made the most interceptions amongst Chelsea players (13) and had the second-highest defensive duels attempted and won, behind only Kante. He did lose the ball 12 times, but only three times as a result of a lost defensive duel. Five of the 12 times the ball was lost was in the opposition half resulted from passes not reaching the intended targets.

All in all, it was a very solid performance from the youngster. James’ inclusion in the side provides Chelsea with a dangerous attacking option from the right—in addition to his athleticism—which makes him an asset defensively, as well.

Edouard Mendy was as cool as a cucumber

The biggest win for Chelsea was the clean sheet. Whilst the whole team and defence played a crucial role in making this happen, Mendy seemed to give off a sense of calmness and confidence that assisted the back line in achieving this feat. The defence seemed to be more composed with the Senegal international between the sticks. There were one or two instances of miscommunication; for instance, when Zouma chested the ball down, expecting Mendy to claim it. However, on the whole, he was did everything pretty well from shot-stopping to commanding his box, passing and everything in between.

In terms of passing, Mendy completed 14 out of his 22 attempted passes. This is significant considering most of his passes were long balls (11), but his accuracy on the long balls was low in the game at 36 percent—or 4 out 11. This, of course, was not fully his fault. His long passes often reached the right areas, but were not won by the recipient of the pass. In terms of his actual job, he did not have to face too many shots on target, but did well to save whatever came his way. Finally, we saw glimpses of his dominance in the air as he was able to claim high balls from crosses/set plays very easily.

Given Sevilla was without its best defensive personnel, the Blues will have been disappointed not to score at home. However it was more crucial at this time to stop conceding goals, so this match was a step in the right direction. If the Blues can continue to keep things tight at the back, that’s more than half the battle won. The goals will come given the team’s attacking potency.

All data comes from Wyscout.