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Is there cause for concern about Chelsea being in 12th place again?

By Olaoluwa Nwobodo

LONDON, ENGLAND - SEPTEMBER 2: Pitch view prior to the Premier League match between Chelsea FC and Nottingham Forest at Stamford Bridge on September 2, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by MB Media/Getty Images)
LONDON, ENGLAND - SEPTEMBER 2: Pitch view prior to the Premier League match between Chelsea FC and Nottingham Forest at Stamford Bridge on September 2, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by MB Media/Getty Images) /
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Chelsea
LONDON, ENGLAND – AUGUST 25: Chelsea manager Mauricio Pochettino embraces Levi Colwill of Chelsea after the Premier League match between Chelsea FC and Luton Town at Stamford Bridge on August 25, 2023 in London, England. (Photo by Joe Prior/Visionhaus via Getty Images) /

They also ranked 8th for shots per game and joint 11th for non-penalty xG per shot (npxG/Sh). To go into more detail, examining ball movement and chance creation, Boehly’s Blues ranked 10th for big chances gotten. In addition to that, they ranked 8th for Shot Creating Actions and 13th for Goal-Creating Actions. All these combined to produce a deserved 12th-place finish, especially considering that they finished 8% of their shots. To summarize, the Blues’ problem last season was…everything.

This season, Chelsea has gone almost a full 180 degrees in all the metrics mentioned above, metrics which come together to decide where you finish in the table. Last season, it was easy to notice that the Blues’ finishing was quite poor. The Blues didn’t get better finishers in the window though, in fact, they stripped the squad of Christian Pulisic, Romelu Lukaku, and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang: all very good finishers. If you wonder why the finishing was still so poor despite the above-mentioned good finishers, it’s because these guys did not play much. Lukaku played 0 minutes, while Pulisic and Aubameyang played a combined 1,972 minutes in all competitions for the club last season. Lukaku is at AS Roma now, Pulisic is at AC Milan, where he has scored two goals in three games this season, and Aubameyang is at Olympique Marseille.

Examining the club’s position this season, the first thing to note is that it is just four games into the season, and nothing that has happened so far is a real indication of anything substantial. It is also just five competitive games Mauricio Pochettino has managed as a Chelsea manager. In the four league games he has been in the dugout, his men have ranked 1st in average possession per game (66%), according to WhoScored. It’s not just possession without penetration either, as they have gotten the second most big chances (14) in the Premier League this season, behind only Brentford.

The Blues have gotten more big chances than Arsenal, Manchester City, Tottenham, and Manchester United. The former rank 3rd for expected goals from non-penalty shots (npxG). They boast a higher npxG/Sh than Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool, and Brighton. These are ultra-positive signs considering that Pochettino is still new as manager of the club.

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