Chelsea news as Mauricio Pochettino attempts to balance defensive options and injuries while aware of a potential departure for Thiago Silva.
Chelsea’s problems this season have been evident with the team ranking second in the league for defensive performance.
They only have seven goals in seven games, including three games without a goal, which is clearly below average, but they are unbeatable defensively.
Only Everton has failed to score more goals than Chelsea this season, and just two teams have been less productive at home, highlighting their weaknesses.
Just half of the Blues’ games at Stamford Bridge this season have seen them score.
The Blues are very strong on defense, which is the metric that is said to win championships.
They have only given up six goals in seven games, three of them on the road against West Ham. Only Manchester City, who currently leads the league, has conceded fewer goals so far.
It hasn’t been a significant overperformance either; according to the xGA, Chelsea has conceded nearly two fewer goals than the underlying statistics would indicate, but there are eight other teams in the league that have performed equally well or better at this point.
to put it simply.
When they lost to both Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa due to errors, it didn’t always appear that way, but in both contests, the defense would have received less criticism if the forwards had done their jobs in front of goal.
At this point, no team has underperformed their expected strikes more than Chelsea, with the exception of Everton’s system-breaking -8.40 xG differential.
It makes a case for how better results will come as soon as the finishing gets better.
This is the very nature of football after all—simple to understand, harder to actually do.
The fact that the defense is currently the most injury-stricken and possibly the furthest from full fitness within this is a plus for Pochettino. Thiago Silva is 39 and leaves others to cover for his immobility despite what he brings to the team, Reece James is the starting right-back but has only played 70 minutes this season, Axel Disasi is entering his second month in the Premier League, and Levi Colwill is playing left-back but is out of position.
It’s quite an accomplishment to have the defensive consistency that has been discovered—three clean sheets in the last four games across all competitions—with a backline that may not contain all four members of the ideal lineup. Although it’s unclear how Wesley Fofana, Colwill, Silva, Disasi, and Benoit Badiashile will work together after this season, not to mention Trevoh Chalobah, there are many possibilities.
But Pochettino has opted to maintain a rigid hiring procedure.
This isn’t the defense that Chelsea supporters would have chosen in the preseason, whether it’s because of injuries, getting his feet under the table, or largely trusting a growing body of impressive work – it could be a mix of all of them.
With healthy full-backs and the Silva-Colwill partnership forming long before Disasi arrived, the manager himself was much more traditional in America.
Badiashile may be the missing piece that will allow all of this to proceed.
From January 12 on, Chelsea won just four games in the second half of the season, and Badiashile played in every one of them.
Alongside Silva frequently, the 22-year-old only participated in two of Chelsea’s defeats in the previous season; without him, the team’s record was played 10, won 0 games, 2 drew games, and 8 defeats.
Even in the world of Chelsea finishing 12th, how strongly that correlates to improvement is astounding.
With Badiashile on the team, four clean sheets were recorded in 11 games, as opposed to just one without him.
His aerial presence and left-footed option to the defense stood out right away.
It is unclear how he will fit in when he returns from injury in the upcoming weeks, but the work he has done so far cannot be overlooked.
He will try to work with Silva as often as he can to learn from him, which will help. Badiashile glowed like a child when asked who the club’s oldest player was.
He said, “I must get on his nerves a little because I ask him an enormous amount of questions.
It’s because, as Axel [Disasi] said, he’s exceptionally intelligent and mature for his age.
Working with someone of his caliber is such an honor; he benefits everyone around him and helps us achieve our full potential.
Due to the lack of a natural left-footer that Pochettino is willing to pick there, Silva is currently playing on the left side.
When he returns, Badiashile will be vying with Silva and Colwill for the starting spot there, while the right side is crowded with Disasi, Fofana, and the possibility of using Chalobah or Silva there as well.
Although there are numerous moving parts, Pochettino’s current decisions mean that little change is likely to occur.
But over time, Badiashile will be eager to assert himself because he has earned the chance.
