We’re 80% of the way through Chelsea’s season now, and the data is really mounting up. You can look back at the games so far and draw some really clear conclusions from it all.
Sorting all our Premier League games by the xG the team created and something very clear emerges: the Blues have lost just one game all season in which they created more than 2 xG. That was against Aston Villa last month, and even that outlier only came because our goalkeeper fumbled an easy shot.
Meanwhile, on the flip side we’ve only won one game in which we generated less than 1.6 xG – a jammy late win over Bournemouth back in September.
That all stands to reason – create more chances and you’ll score more goals, score more goals and you’ll win more points. It’s not rocket science.
Chelsea missing their volume shooters to turn possession into xG
But how do you generate xG? By taking shots. And that’s where we’re struggling right now thanks to injury.
Our top shooters per game this season in the Premier League according to WhoScored are Cole Palmer (3.6), Noni Madueke (2.8), Nicolas Jackson (2.7) and Joao Felix (1.7).
What do they have in common? They’ve all been unavailable in the last few weeks as our form has crumbled.
Enzo Fernandez and Pedro Neto are the biggest shooters from the team we’ve played in the last few games, and their numbers are relatively small. They’re putting up 1.4 per game each, about half of what those top options give us.
Of course we don’t just want people shooting randomly from anywhere, but we need to turn possession into goals. And to do that, you need players willing to take a risk and have a go rather than recycle the ball endlessly.
