Putting Chelsea Back Under The Microscope
8 min read🔵 🔬 Putting Chelsea Back Under The Microscope 🔬 🔵
✍️ I’ve had several members ask me to do another article about Chelsea assets so here you go…
🤷♂️ Let’s start with the Head Coach…
📉 Graham Potter’s league record as Chelsea manager now reads: P16, W5, D6, L5. Goals Scored = 15, Goals Conceded = 13.
💩 By Chelsea’s standards an overall 31% win record is poor. A bigger worry would probably be that 3 of his 5 wins came in the first 3 league games which were 5 months ago now. It can therefore be argued that Chelsea are actually going ⏪ backwards under 🪄 Potter and not forwards ⏩…
📊 Strip out Potter’s first 3️⃣ games in charge and his record in their last 13 league games reads: P13, W2, D6, L5. Goals Scored 8, Goals Conceded 12.
👎 That’s a win rate of just 15% over what is actually a decent sized sample size of 13 games. Now that’s a seriously bad record and is a worry to many Chelsea fans I’m sure‼️
🇷🇺 There is no way that any Chelsea manager under the Abramovic regime would’ve survived those numbers 🔢. The axe 🪓 would’ve fallen long ago.
👍 …All of 🇮🇹Ranieri, 🇮🇹Di Matteo, 🇮🇹Sarri, 🇩🇪Tuchel, 🇳🇱Hiddinck, 🇧🇷Scolari, 🇮🇹Conte, 🇵🇹Mourinho, 🇮🇹Ancelloti and 🇮🇱Avram Grant had a much better points per game record than Potter does. He sneaks in just above 🏴Lampard and 🇵🇹Villas Boas to be fair to him but his record so far is pretty much as bad as it gets for any Chelsea coach in the past 20 years.
🥅 Defensively their numbers are, to be fair, decent ✅. Just 13 goals conceded in 16 games is absolutely fine…hence the likes of 🇪🇸Kepa have been good FPL picks.
⚽️ To average scoring less than 1 goal ⚽️ per game is absolutely atrocious though‼️…and their goal output is trending downwards and not upwards…
👀 Just listing the goals output visually perhaps works well so that you can see just how unattractive their record (and their FPL attacking assets) and how the numbers have regressed rather than improved since Potter took over…2, 3, 2, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 2, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1.
👎 Just 6 goals scored in their last 10 league games 🤮💩🤮💩🤮.
👎 They’ve also suffered their 1st defeat to Fulham in 18 years + 1st time out of both cups 🏆 in the 1st round since 1989 + fewer league wins of any PL team since mid-October + the worst period of Chelsea form since 1993.
👎 They’re also still behind both of their West London neighbours 🐝 Brentford and 🏡 Fulham in the table.
🌊 Potter continues to look out of his depth to me. He seems to have gone from looking calm and assured when he first joined (albeit still without the gravitas / demeanour of a top appointment)…to then looking like a scared rabbit 🐇 in front of the headlights…to then looking absolutely shattered 😩…to now looking a bit less tired but also quite downbeat / circumspect with his media interviews. His body language in the dugout is very neutral. Whilst nobody is expecting him to run up & down the touchline like 🇮🇹Conte did at times, showing some kind of impact might just appease the fans and motivate the players somewhat.
🎙️ His press conferences look, feel and sound like he’s still managing a much smaller club to me. From a PR and fans perspective, he’s too deferential IMO to other clubs. He provides too many reasons why other clubs did well against his own team. He talks as if nothing is very urgent and during his tenure at Stamford Bridge we’ve basically seen the players on the pitch do the same thing 🤷♂️…i.e. show a lack of urgency. It all feels very tepid basically 🤷♂️.
🤷♂️ ‘Patience’ and the ‘Project’ is one thing but so is ‘reality’…no football manager gets to keep their job is they fail to deliver week after week and week. It’s analogous with getting red arrows each GW in FPL…you can put it down to this or that (and you can call it a ‘project’) but eventually you have to be honest and say that you’re just not doing a very good job managing your FPL team.
🇺🇸Boehly as the Chelsea Chairman, alongside 🇮🇷🇺🇸Behdad Eghbali as the co-controlling owner (and co-founder of 🌍Clearlake Capital), continue to publicly back Potter but how much time 🕰️ can and will they actually give him❓At this stage it looks to me like he’ll be able to see the season out. Between them, the fact that they’ve flooded the squad with loads of new players will provide another reason to allow for the ‘project’ not yet firing 🔥.
🧠 My own view…I don’t think Potter is a great fit for Chelsea. Nice guy ✅ Capable coach ✅ Innovative methods ✅ Articulate ✅ Doesn’t have the ego / aura to be Chelsea manager ❌ Doesn’t have the CV to justify the appointment ❌ Doesn’t have the CV to buy him time and good faith with the fans ❌ Results on the pitch give no indication his methods are working…or are going to work in a quick enough fashion ❌ Doesn’t have the bite or charisma for such a big role ❌
…sometimes you can be promoted to the level of your incompetence. As harsh at that sounds I think we’re seeing that with Potter now 🤷♂️.
🍛 The fella who runs my local Indian takeaway is a really nice guy and is brilliant at what he does 🥘…I’m not convinced he’d do well running the kitchen at The Ritz Hotel though 🤷♂️. Maybe Potter is better suited to Brighton and the Amex than he is to Chelsea & Stamford Bridge 🏟️?
Moving on to the players from a FPL perspective. I’ll cover some but not all as I may run out of ink ✍️ given their spending in the last 2️⃣ transfer windows 🪟…
🇪🇸 Kepa – remains a fine pick. Exactly what you want from a FPL goalie…plenty of clean sheets + they concede enough low XG chances for him to rack up save points + he plays a lot of accurate passes with his feet 🦶 = which all translates to excellent FPL points.
🏴 James – back from injury 🤕. We now await his next one. Made of glass sadly. Superb player when fully fit. Has a potential FPL haul in his locker but more often than not his owners get to enjoy a run of 0,1,0,1 ,1 – if you’re into computer coding he could be the man to fulfil your binary dreams.
🏴 Chilwell – also now back from injury 🩼. A similar story to Reece James injury wise. A fine player and a great FPL pick when fully fit & nailed in the team. So far better than Cucurella it’s not even a conversation 🗣️. Doubtful he’ll be nailed enough to go there in FPL though as they’ll seek to protect him from further injury and, well, Potter just likes rotating‼️ Chilwell is the player I feel Man City should buy in the summer 🌞.
🇫🇷 Badiashile – looks like one of their better signings. Also looks nailed 🔨 in that LCB spot especially give he’s not in the Champions League squad.
🇪🇸 Cucurella – such a poor player in real life (at this level) and in FPL. Offers virtually nothing going forwards as is demonstrated by his actual and underlying attacking returns. Crazy that they spent so much on him. Bang average.
🇧🇷 Thiago Silva – class player. Can’t see the point in paying the extra £05.m over 🇫🇷Badiashile in FPL though. Phenomenal signing for them. Fair play.
🇸🇳 Koulibaly – past his best when they bought him and it shows. Like a lumbering oaf most of the time when on the pitch. Bad signing.
🇦🇷 Enzo Fernandez – clearly a very good player. Whether he’s a FPL asset (even at his £5m price point) is a different matter 🤷♂️. If he plays a 🇪🇸Cesc Fabregas type no.8 role then maybe he is. If he’s deployed more like a no.6 then he probably isn’t. Very doubtful he’s one of the 5 best midfielders you would want in your FPL team. Feels to me that it’ll mainly just be the fan boys forcing him in.
🇺🇦 Mudryk – the lad clearly has talent. His first 3 PL appearances are though the very epitome of why it’s usually best to wait and see how someone settle in the PL before buying them in FPL. He’s produced nothing so far basically. Dragged off after 45 mins v Fulham and then produced 0️⃣ chances created, 0️⃣ shots and 0️⃣ of 2️⃣ dribbles attempted v West Ham in GW23. I’m sure he’ll come good but it’s a watching brief at the moment FPL wise 👀.
🇵🇹 Joao Felix – his categorisation as a striker perhaps makes him more interesting than the likes of 🇺🇦Mudryk. He scored a nice goal v West Ham. You’d also think he’d be nailed ⚒️ given the crazy loan fee paid by Chelsea for his services…and especially give he’s missed 3️⃣ games already due to that reckless red card 🟥 on his debut.
🤔 I would just seek to manage expectations by reminding people that he averaged just 1 goal every 4 games for 🇪🇸Athletico Madrid over several seasons. That’s not great at all given he was playing for a top 4 🇪🇸La Liga team. He’s also never reached 10 goals in a season…again, not a great indicator.
🔢 His baseline bonus numbers are very good (mainly because he drops deep to link the play as a striker). His 1.5 XG in 2 games for Chelsea in the league is also very encouraging. One to keep an eye 👁️ on.
🇩🇪 Havertz – remains FPL trash 🚮. Looks and plays like he’s half asleep 😴 in far too many games. Owners will get a decent output from him roughly 1️⃣ GW in 6️⃣. A terrible pick basically and not a player I ever expect to properly make it in the Premier League.
🇬🇦 Auba – the less said the better. An atrocious signing (as I said when they brought him back to the Premier League). So far over the hill 🏔️ you can’t even see him with a pair of binoculars 👓.
🏴 Mount – an insipid FPL pick at best. He’s produced the square root of f*** all this season. Remains a FPL avoid albeit he’ll record some good scores at some stage I’m sure. You might fall asleep 💤 waiting though.
🇭🇷 Kovacic – a superb player IMO. Not a FPL pick but someone who Chelsea needs in their starting 11.
🏴 Madueke- getting some mins (and looks like a prospect) but clearly he’s not a viable FPL asset.
🇲🇦 Ziyech – a player I really like. Such a strange situation with his failed move to 🇫🇷PSG and then coming straight back into the team etc. Talk about mixed messages to him and to other vying for his position. He’s a FPL avoid sadly.
📊 With all of their offensive assets the biggest question you need to be asking yourself is “Where are the FPL points coming from given Chelsea hardly score any goals”⁉️
🔢 …a reminder that their last 4️⃣ games have produced 0️⃣, 0️⃣, 0️⃣ and 1️⃣ goal.
🤔 What are your own thoughts about what’s going on at Chelsea❓
<Admin #Chindle13 >
