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Werner woes, struggling Kante and poor

pressing: what’s going wrong at
Chelsea?
Michael Cox and Tom Worville Jan 5, 2021 137

Appointing a relative rookie like Frank Lampard creates a dilemma for Roman
Abramovich.

On one hand, if you appoint an inexperienced manager who is learning on the

job, you don’t expect a quick fix — it’s more likely he’ll encounter some poor
runs of form, which must be tolerated in the belief the manager will prove
successful over a longer period.
On the other, if Abramovich pulled the trigger midway through the season and
sacked World Cup winner Luiz Felipe Scolari, Europa League winner Andre
Villas-Boas, European Cup winner Roberto Di Matteo and three-time Premier
League winner Jose Mourinho, then why does Lampard deserve more time
than those who have proved themselves at the highest level?

With Chelsea currently sitting ninth in the Premier League, discussions about
Lampard’s future are inevitable but what have been Chelsea’s specific issues this
season?

Zonal Marking
(https://theathletic.com/podcast/145-zonal-marking/)

Chelsea's midfield issues...

Clip - Episode 58
(https://theathletic.com/podcast/145-zonal-marking/?episode=58)

:00 5:09

Goalkeeping problems haven’t been resolved

Chelsea’s major problem in Lampard’s first season was unquestionably in goal,
where Kepa Arrizabalaga endured a terrible campaign. By the end of the
season, Chelsea had allowed chances with an expected goals against value of
around 41 but had conceded 54 times. That was the largest difference in the
Premier League, pointing to Kepa’s inability to keep the ball out of the net.

Lampard was desperate to secure the services of a new goalkeeper, particularly

after Kepa’s woes continued in the opening games of this season. Edouard
Mendy arrived from Rennes
(https://theathletic.co.uk/2055673/2020/09/24/how-and-why-edouard-
mendy-joined-chelsea/) and initially seemed to have improved things
dramatically — he saved eight of the first nine shots he faced and Chelsea kept
five straight clean sheets for the first time in a decade.

But Mendy’s form has dropped off since then. He rushed out too quickly for a
Patrick Bamford opener in Chelsea’s eventual 3-1 victory over Leeds at
Stamford Bridge and then did the same to concede a penalty in the 1-0 loss at
Everton. Errors in possession have also crept into his game, notably when
almost skewing the ball into his own net on a windy evening at Old Trafford
and passing straight to Arsenal’s Alexandre Lacazette in a 3-1 loss at the
Emirates before atoning for his mistake with a decent save.

Overall, the statistics aren’t particularly convincing. Chelsea have clearly

improved on Kepa but Mendy’s numbers are average rather than spectacular
when you assess Opta’s expected goals on target (xGOT) figures, which
account for the placement of a shot (as well as where it was struck from).
Mendy has conceded 10 goals from positions where you would expect 9.3. He’s
ranked ninth in the league for goals prevented (the difference between xGOT
and goals conceded) of the 20 regular Premier League goalkeepers.
That’s not disastrous but early optimism about Mendy might have been slightly
misplaced. This graph shows the number of goals he’s conceded in relation to
the quality of shots over the course of his Chelsea career so far and while, in his
opening matches, Mendy was outperforming expectations, now he’s slipped
behind them. These numbers also don’t account, for example, for that needless
concession of a penalty at Everton.

That’s not disastrous, of course, and this is a small sample of games, and the
margins are thin — but that’s still important, given one extra save can turn a
loss into a draw or a draw into a win.

Overall, Chelsea have conceded 21 goals having faced chances worth 17.5 xG.
Some of this is a hangover from Kepa’s continued presence in goal in the
opening matches of the campaign — and Willy Caballero’s only appearance
resulted in three concessions at West Brom.

Overall, though, the goalkeeper position has remained a problem. Chelsea have
gone from the biggest underperformance last season to the second-biggest this
season, behind Brighton. Mendy is an improvement on Kepa but for the second
consecutive season, Lampard can justifiably be frustrated by the number of
goals his goalkeepers have conceded.
Kante is struggling in big games
Lampard’s switch to 4-3-3 at the end of October reopened the debate about
the identity of Chelsea’s holding midfielder. This was originally an issue under
Maurizio Sarri, who controversially opted for his old Napoli comrade Jorginho,
asking N’Golo Kante to play in more of a box-to-box role.

When Lampard played 4-3-3 last season, he often followed Sarri’s approach
but since switching to that shape this season, on nine of the 11 Premier League
matches, he’s fielded Kante as his defensive midfielder — on the other two
occasions, Jorginho has played there, with Kante shifting right again.

Neither have performed particularly well this season but Kante’s performances
in 3-1 defeats to Arsenal and Manchester City have been particularly
concerning. The France international has been sluggish when receiving
possession on the turn, sloppy with his distribution and far too clumsy in terms
of conceding fouls. That was noticeably problematic against Arsenal when
Granit Xhaka stepped up and smashed a resulting free kick home.

His decision-making also cost Chelsea a goal against City when he received the
ball following a Chelsea corner as the last man back, attempted to find a team-
mate and conceded possession. He was bypassed by Raheem Sterling, whose
shot bounced back for Kevin De Bruyne to make it 3-0. It was reminiscent of
Kante stumbling on the halfway line in a similar situation to allow Arsenal’s
Gabriel Martinelli to net an equaliser at Stamford Bridge last season.

Jorginho doesn’t offer Kante’s ball-winning skills and has sometimes been
criticised for his cautious distribution, but his classic whipped around-the-
corner pass assisted a goal for Timo Werner against Southampton (when
Lampard was using them together in a 4-2-3-1) and that type of incision has
been badly lacking from Kante when playing deep.

Kante’s best contributions this season have come when he’s pushed on. He
burst forward through Leeds’ man-marking, for example, and created a good
chance for Werner when driving forward in the 3-0 win over West Ham just
before Christmas, only for the Germany forward to hit his shot against the
crossbar.

It’s become somewhat sacrilegious to suggest it at Stamford Bridge but Kante

might be better used in a more energetic role. Lampard doesn’t seem entirely
convinced by Jorginho and Billy Gilmour’s half-hour outing against
Manchester City, having been introduced in place of Kante, hints that he might
be thinking of someone different altogether.

A poorly co-ordinated press

In the aftermath of Sunday’s 3-1 defeat against Manchester City, Lampard
pointed to the sudden shift in the narrative around his performance as Chelsea
manager. “We went 16 games unbeaten (recently). A month ago, everyone was
talking about where we were going to go to, where I was going to go…”

But Chelsea’s impressive performances in October and November were largely

reliant upon the quality of opposition. During their unbeaten run, Chelsea’s
victories came against Crystal Palace, Burnley, Sheffield United, Newcastle and
Leeds — all currently in the bottom half of the table. Their draws came against
Southampton, Manchester United and Tottenham — all in the top half of the
table. To put it another way, Chelsea haven’t yet defeated anyone above 10th-
placed West Ham. When the fixtures have been more difficult, results have
been poor.

Of course, to a certain extent, that’s natural, but a common feature of Chelsea’s

performance in big games is their lack of organisation without possession,
particularly when it comes to pressing in midfield. Overall, pressing across the
Premier League has fallen this season.
(https://theathletic.com/2249701/2020/12/09/premier-league-pressing-less/)
At Chelsea, it’s often seemed like Lampard has asked his players to press but
the actual specifics are lacking. Here are three examples from two-goal defeats
to Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester City.

Eleven minutes into the game against Liverpool, Alisson has possession and
feeds a pass into Jordan Henderson. No-one is in a position to stop the pass, or
to prevent him from turning — but, in that area of the pitch, that’s not a huge
problem.

The problem, though, comes when he does turn. Then, we discover that all
three of Chelsea’s central midfielders — Mateo Kovacic, Jorginho and Kante —
are all trying to shut him down but aren’t close enough to actual dispossess him.
Therefore, Henderson has time to turn and prod a pass in behind all three…
… and onto Sadio Mane, between the lines. Kante desperately tries to get back
and stop him, but Mane has the option of a simple square pass to Roberto
Firmino.

Chelsea were too easy to play through.

That has become a common theme of those defeats. Here’s the build-up to the
goal scored by Bukayo Saka at the Emirates, which effectively ended that game
as a contest. Rob Holding is in possession and Chelsea’s midfielders are again
disorganised. Mason Mount is broadly trying to put pressure on Holding.
Kante has been higher up the pitch closing down Arsenal’s centre-backs and is
trying to drop back and shut down Xhaka — but isn’t in a position to do so —
while Jorginho goes racing towards Saka.
The pass into Xhaka, in oceans of space, is on and from there, Arsenal build a
decisive attack down their right, which is eventually finished by Saka. Again,
Chelsea are too easy to play through.

Finally, here’s the build-up to Ilkay Gundogan’s opener on Sunday. Again, this
pass from Ruben Dias into Rodri is simple. Rodri has started the game
nervously, constantly misplacing passes and narrowly avoiding conceding a
penalty. A high-energy side would have pressed him relentlessly and created
more turnovers.

But this time, there’s no pressure on the ball. Rodri has time to amble forward,
Kante casually comes out towards him and Rodri is able to feed the ball out to
the left, where the goal comes from. The goalscorer, Gundogan, drifts between
the lines and wasn’t ever really under pressure before his finish.
Lampard can blame individual underperformance in both penalty boxes for
Chelsea’s recent slump but he must take responsibility for Chelsea’s openness in
midfield.

Werner’s woes
Chelsea’s attacking issues are best incapsulated by Timo Werner, who has failed
to replicate the goalscoring exploits
(https://theathletic.co.uk/2290861/2020/12/30/chelsea-timo-werner-shearer/)
that made him so sought after.

First, it’s worth considering that Werner isn’t far away from getting things
right. He’s hit the woodwork five times this season, more than any other
Premier League player. If two of those five had gone in and he had scored six
goals instead of the four he has so far, there probably wouldn’t be so much
discussion about his performances. His non-penalty xG per 90 in the Premier
League is the 15th-highest in the league at 0.39, yet he’s only scored 0.26 per
90, 43rd-best in the league.
There’s more to being a wide forward in Chelsea’s possession-heavy system
than scoring goals, though. Considering data from smarterscout, Werner’s ball
retention ability as a left winger is rated at just 31/99, indicative of his inability
to maintain possession.

That’s sometimes forgivable if the player is the only turnover-prone option on

the team or is trying high-risk, high-reward passes. Sadly, that’s not a caveat
applicable to Werner, who is required to stitch Chelsea’s possession together,
with a rating of 93/99 for link play.

Combine that with the fact that he rarely looks to pass the ball forward (his
progressive passing rating is 21/99) and that he’s relatively inept at progressing
the ball too (his xG from ball progression rating is 8/99), and Werner’s overall
contributions to the team look very weak.

So why is that the case?

In a positional sense, Werner did have a tendency of cutting in from the left-
hand side for Leipzig, although that was more of a ploy to keep himself out of
the eyeline of the opposing centre-back and not where he’d be routinely
stationed. Seventy-eight per cent of Werner’s domestic minutes last season
came with him playing as a striker, with just four per cent at left wing.

Contrast that with his time so far at Chelsea, with 63 per cent of his minutes
coming from that left wing position, a quarter of them up front and the rest on
the right.
A lack of familiarity with the left wing role partly explains Werner’s poor
output so far this season but doesn’t tell the whole story. There’s a large and
notable difference in how Leipzig last season and Chelsea this season approach
games, the former bringing Werner’s strengths to the surface far more than
Chelsea’s current system.

The style of play Leipzig employed last season was predicated on a speed and
intensity that capitalised on transitions to create chances. They averaged fewer
sequences of possession that featured 10 or more passes per game than Chelsea,
and also a fewer number of those sequences that reached the opposition penalty
area or ended in a shot (build up attacks in the table below).

Leipzig’s games were far less controlled. There was a higher cadence in terms of
how often the ball changed hands between teams, as noted by the higher
volume of open-play sequences. They also forced more “high turnovers” than
Chelsea, which are open-play turnovers which start within 40 metres of the
opponent’s goal.
Leipzig’s high-octane style fit Werner’s lightning pace perfectly, with him often
having chances either under minimal pressure, with just the goalkeeper to beat,
or both. Werner scored nine goals following a carry — dribbling the ball five
metres or more — which was the most of any player in Europe last season. Just
look at the number of streams from deep into the box in the graphic below.

Now compare it to this season in the graphic below. With nearly half the
season gone, Werner has not scored after a carry and has only had eight shots,
all of which have been from wide in the penalty area. The dearth of chances in
central areas shows how Werner has struggled to replicate his Leipzig impact
against set defences in the Premier League.
This season, Werner’s still carrying the ball at similar rates but it’s the end
product of those carries which has changed a lot. Last season, in his smidgen
over 11 carries per 90, Werner created, shot and scored at far higher rates than
he is doing this season. That’s due to the circumstances that he finds himself in
when on the ball: Chelsea just don’t create those transitional opportunities that
he thrived on at Leipzig.

Underlying statistics are fine but what is Lampard’s long-term

plan?
Chelsea’s two core issues are the relatively poor individual performances of new
attacking signings and the club’s position in the table after some
underwhelming recent results.

With the perceived poor individual performances, there was always going to be
a case of diminishing returns. Playing three players in Kai Havertz, Werner and
Hakim Ziyech together, who respectively averaged 0.62, 1.06 and 1.06 non-
penalty goals and assists per 90 last season, is always going to lead to a drop-off
in the attacking output of each.

There’s only one ball, which is why it’s so rare that a team can have an attack
consisting of three players putting up such strong individual numbers, unless
perhaps you are Barcelona with Neymar, Luis Suarez and Lionel Messi. With
all due respect, Chelsea’s new attacking trio aren’t at that level. Inferior
individual numbers don’t mean that the team as a whole should be hamstrung;
you’d expect Chelsea to still put up good to great xG numbers overall given the
shot in the arm of attacking talent.

That so far isn’t the case though — the attacking pieces haven’t scaled very well
and collectively, are far worse than the sum of their individual parts. Chelsea’s
non-penalty xG per game this season of 1.4 is a joint five-season low (alongside
2017-18, when they finished fifth) and represents a large drop-off compared to
last season, in which the attack created 1.76 xG per game with a squad that, on
paper, was far weaker.

Chelsea have bought players who previously produced some great attacking
stats but there’s no guarantee they’ll all be able to replicate them. There was
always going to be a period of bedding-in required for the new recruits to get
accustomed to their new surroundings.

So although there have not been any standout individual performances from
the new signings, a quick look at the underlying numbers show a team that,
despite their eighth position in the table, have the fourth-best expected goal
difference (xGD) in the Premier League this season. That’s telling as it’s a good
indicator in the long run of how good this team is. Per-game, their xGD is
+0.53, ahead of all but Aston Villa (+0.57), Liverpool (+0.8) and Manchester
City (+0.88).

Splitting that into defence and attack, it’s also evident that Chelsea have had
differing fortunes at both ends so far this season. Scoring 28 from 23.9 xG and
conceding 19 from 14.8 xG conceded suggests that a slowdown in scoring and
fewer goals conceded was always likely in the long run.

The rolling xG chart below considers the 10-game rolling averages of Chelsea’s
xG for and against. Since last season, the attack has worsened slightly over time
(blue line) but the defence has improved (red line). This suggests that up until
 the City game, their defence this season was at its strongest and most
consistent that it’s been for quite some time.

Picking up four points out of a possible 18 for any title-challenging team over
any stretch in a season is cause for concern but Chelsea’s performances weren’t
quite as bad as results suggest. Scoring seven non-penalty goals from 8.5 xG
and conceding 8 from 6.1 xG looks a little unfortunate.

Fourth-best isn’t the best, though, and for Chelsea, that could prove to be the
ultimate reason that costs Frank Lampard his job given the substantial
investment that took place in the summer.

What did you think of this story?

MEH SOLID AWESOME

137 COMMENTS

Add a comment...

Stephen P. Jan 6, 5:45am 54 likes

Well, one question I'd ask...why not play Giroud more in the last couple matches? He's been fairly on-form
recently, unlike pretty much any of the other Chelsea attackers bar Pulisic. And he brings things that none
of the rest of them bring. Have to say that as an Arsenal supporter, I was only too happy that he didn't play
against us.
That doesn't necessarily solve the issues with Havertz or Werner, but if he scores and Chelsea win, those
issues are a little less pressing.

Cesar S. Jan 6, 6:18am 9 likes