Chelsea danced to a merry 4-2 victory at Stamford Bridge today after an insane game against Brighton.
The Seagulls played an incredibly open style which allowed the Blues to slice though them time and again in the first half, and Cole Palmer bagged an amazing FOUR goals in 45 minutes to win the game on his own.
Nicolas Jackson could have scored a couple himself, but ended up having to settle for an assist.
That brought up a significant stat: the Senegal striker has now matched Kai Havertz’ goal and assist tally for Chelsea – in 40 fewer games.
Of course Jackson is more of a pure striker than Havertz – but the German played almost always in a front 3 and fairly regularly leading the line.
Nicolas Jackson has equalled Kai Havertz’s goals/assists tally for Chelsea.
He’s done it in 40 fewer matches. #CFC pic.twitter.com/XncTXGtHDq
— Tom Coley (@tomcoley49) September 28, 2024
Much more significantly is the comparison between this season and last in terms of scoring. We’ve notched 15 already this season in the Premier League alone through 6 games. This time a year ago it was just 5.
Of course you can point to the different fixtures – but they’re pretty comparable. This time last year we really struggled to get results, while this time around we’ve already got crucial points on the board. Last year we got better and better as time passed – if we make similar improvements this season we’ll be competing at the top of the table all year.
Notable difference in return through six opening Premier League games for Chelsea.📈
2023/24: P6 W1 D2 L3 5 goals scored
2024/25: P6 W4 D1 L1 15 goals scoredNo one has scored more Premier League goals than Chelsea this season.🎯 pic.twitter.com/kRjHR9BHic
— Ben Jacobs (@JacobsBen) September 28, 2024
Chelsea’s scoring helps out bad defending
We said this so many times last season when we were getting poor results which were often blamed on our defence: the real issue is in attack. Start putting away chances more efficiently and suddenly your margin for mistakes at the back is so much wider. Today was a perfect example – we conceded a horrific first goal, a dodgy second and could easily have let in more. But the fact that we smashed in 4 and could have had 6 means that those defensive errors are quickly forgotten.
