Chelsea has not been challenging for the league title since they won it in the 2016/17 season when Antonio Conte was in charge. Since then, Chelsea has been behind the league leaders by an average of 25 points over the past five completed seasons. That’s on average eight wins and one draw worse than the league champions.
The Blues look to even finish behind the league leaders by more points than any of the last five seasons.
Everyone in the Chelsea community looks forward to when the Blues will challenge for the league title again, and the club likes to believe they’re putting things in place to make that happen. However, what does a title-challenging team need to do anyway? What level do they need to hit?
4 things that Chelsea need to mount a title challenge
Regular chance creation (<= 100 big chances in 38 games)
A title-challenging team needs to create good chances regularly, especially clear-cut chances. Clear-cut chances or big chances come in many forms, these generally include shots from very close to the goal when the player is reasonably expected to score.
They also include one-on-ones. Over the past five years, two teams have generally contested for the title: Liverpool and Manchester City. Man City has been by far the best team in the country in that period, but Liverpool has competed with them. From the 2018/19 – 2021/22 season, Liverpool’s lowest number of big chances created per game was 2.8. They created that once, created 2.9 big chances per game twice, and created over 3.1 big chances per game twice.
They have also averaged 16.5 shots taken per game in those seasons according to WhoScored, with the lowest tally being the 2018/19 season where they created 15.1 chances per game. 19% of their shots per game have been big chances.
This is the level that is needed to challenge for the league title. You need to create in the region of 600 shots per season and about 100-110 big chances in 38 games as a team. Chelsea in the same period has created 15.7 shots per game on average, and 597 total shots, which is fine, however, they have created 2.4 big chances per game and about 90 big chances per season. This is not up to the level of those who have been challenging for the title.
Chance conversion and big chance conversion (~14% shot conversion in a season)
This point is more important in a title run, but the previous point is important in that it gives you more chances to score. The more good chances you create, the lower the proportion you need to convert to score lots of goals. Some teams have challenged for league titles by converting a small percentage of a high volume of chances. Some others have challenged by converting a higher proportion of a not-as-high volume.
Big chances are your best chances to score, so converting them is very important. Chelsea has missed, on average, 66% of the big chances they’ve gotten in the last five seasons. In the same period, Liverpool missed 58% of their big chances on average, with their most wasteful season being the 2017-18 season where they missed 73% of their big chances.
In terms of general shot conversion, Chelsea converted 10.8% of their shots on average, Liverpool averaged 13.2%, and Manchester City averaged 14.6%. It wouldn’t then surprise you to know that of those three, City has scored the most goals in that period, followed by Liverpool, and then Chelsea. Chelsea would need to get to a 14 or 15% shot conversion, which then means that they would need to increase the quality of shots they create on average, but would also need to be better at shooting.
Shot allowance and defending (<3 shots on targets allowed per game)
Chelsea would need to limit the number of shots and shots on target they allow per game. In the time under scrutiny, Liverpool has allowed 8.2 shots per game on average, 2.9 of those being shots on target. In the same period, Manchester City has allowed 6.7 shots, with 2.3 of them being on target per game.
CFC has allowed 9.1 shots with three of them being on target per game. Furthermore, Liverpool’s highest number of shots on target allowed coincided with the one season they did not challenge for the title since they started challenging: the 2020/21 season where they came third. Manchester City’s highest number of shots on target allowed (2.8) also coincided with the one season they did not win the league title in the last five completed seasons: 2019/20.
Reducing the volume and quality of shots allowed is as important for a title challenger as creating a high volume of good goal-scoring chances. Man City allowed 2.2, 2.0, 2.8, 2.2, and 2.4 shots on target per game in the last five seasons, you can guess the season they didn’t win the league.
Interestingly, Chelsea boasts the lowest proportion of shots on target to shots, with 33% of the shots they’ve allowed in the time under scrutiny being shots on target, compared to 34% for Man City and 35% for Liverpool.
Shot-stopping (~71% save rate)
The previous section is heavily linked with this one. Manchester City has been able to consistently keep excellent defensive records not because they have an excellent keeper, but because they’re excellent defensively. They allow very few shots per game (6.7), and a very low number of shots on target per game (2.3), this means that the goalkeeper only needs to be competent, without being outstanding, and they’d have a good chance of winning the league. When you do it as well as City has, your goalkeeper can even afford to be poor, and you’d still have a chance of winning it.
The save percentages of the goalkeepers of the last five league-winning campaigns are 69% (Ederson, Man City), 72% (Ederson, Man City), 72% (Alisson, Liverpool), 70% (Ederson, Man City), 70% (Ederson, Man City), according to SofaScore.
That’s an average of 71% save rate. This means that any goalkeeper that can manage a 71% save rate will do just fine for a title-challenging side. Arsenal is currently eight points clear at the top of the table (with a game ahead) with Aaron Ramsdale in goal. Ramsdale has averaged a 72% save rate this season.
The most important factor for a title-challenging side in terms of shot-stopping is keeping the number of shots on target per game very low, preferably below 2.9 shots on target per game, then as long as the keeper is competent and can save up to 70% of that, everything will be fine.
Different title-challenging goalkeepers record varying save rates, but the general constant is the number of shots they face per game*.
A title-challenging side does not need to tick just one of these boxes, it needs to tick all four in most cases. It needs to create a high volume of high-quality goal-scoring chances, finish those chances at a good and sustainable rate to score many goals, and also reduce the number and quality of shots your goalkeeper faces.
Chelsea has only been able to do one of these consistently, in each of the past five seasons, and that’s why they have not been title challengers. In the 2019/20 season the Blues created an impressive 2.8 big chances per game, but only converted 10% of their shots, and their goalkeeper at the time, Kepa Arrizabalaga, faced 3.2 shots on target per game.
In the 2020/21 season, Chelsea limited their opponents to just 2.7 shots on target per game, with Mendy saving 70% of those, but they created just 2.4 big chances per game, converted about 10% of their shots again, and in fact only scored 58 goals in 38 league games.
The 2021/22 season also saw the Blues pass in the shot allowance and defending aspect, but fail in chance creation and goal-scoring. This season, Arsenal is passing in 3/4 of these, creating a lot, scoring a lot, and saving a good percentage of shots faced, but are allowing 3.3 shots on target per game, which they need to reduce.
This checklist will definitely not ALWAYS be true, but most of the time, it would be accurate. This season, Chelsea is not creating that much (1.9 big chances per game), is converting just 9% of their shots, and is allowing four shots on target per game, though the goalkeeper is saving 78% of the shots he’s facing.
*Shots faced by a goalkeeper would be the same as shots on target allowed by that goalkeeper’s team because the outcome is either a save, a goal, or in very rare cases, a goal line clearance.