Chelsea’s defensive and set piece issues part two: The cause

In part one, we looked at the defensive situation at Chelsea and put their defensive numbers in context, comparing it to other teams and to other seasons.

It was clear that yes, the Blues are struggling with defending set pieces, as well as defending from open play. This brings us to the next question. It’s not normal for a team to go from being one of the best defenses in the division to be one of the worst, so what is the cause of all these issues?

That is also not easy to answer, as defending is triggered by many different things and is a team effort. Many things contribute to how well a team would do defensively.

Chelsea’s Ball retention

One of those factors is ball retention. There’s a reason Manchester City has very good defensive numbers. Their team is filled with players with superb ball retention. This means they’d lose the ball less, concede fewer counter-attacks, and give up fewer shots and by extension fewer shots on target.

Man City plays out from the back through their centerbacks and central midfielders, much like CFC. Their first-choice centerback and a key player in their play, Ruben Dias, averages 83 passes per game at a 93% accuracy according to SofaScore. The surprising thing is that he’s not the CB with the highest passing accuracy, in fact, he has the lowest. Nathan Ake (95%) and John Stones (97%) have higher passing accuracy.