Why Everybody's Wrong About Chelsea
With striker Nicolas Jackson misfiring, it's been a disastrous start to the season for Chelsea. But a look at the "underlying numbers" shows that this isn't just an average team missing a few chances, but one of the best teams in the Premier League on the cusp of having a great season.
Transcript
00:00 (electronic music)
00:02 - All right, everybody, Adam Cleary from 442 here,
00:07 and every once in a while, you gotta put your hands up
00:09 and say, "Look, I might have got that one wrong."
00:13 - Right, Chelsea are winning the Premier League this season.
00:17 Yeah, right, look, I know, I know, I know, I know,
00:19 I know, I know, I know.
00:20 - Squad full of players you mistakenly think are bad players.
00:24 Pochettino, manager who understands the league,
00:26 he's won things now, he's hungry for success.
00:28 No European football.
00:29 They are the perfect storm of surprise Premier League winners.
00:33 - And I mean, while I certainly don't think
00:35 they're going to win the league anymore,
00:36 sometimes you can just put your hands
00:38 all the way back down and say,
00:39 "No, actually, I refuse to concede on this point.
00:44 This Chelsea team is actually really good,
00:47 and soon you're gonna see why."
00:50 (bell dings)
00:52 All right, so earlier on in this week,
00:54 Opta, big professional football nerds,
00:57 they know all the things, they published an article saying,
00:59 "Hey, do you know what?
01:00 We've looked at the underlying numbers
01:02 and Chelsea should be fourth."
01:04 Now I'm gonna get this part of the video in
01:06 as early as I possibly can.
01:07 No, Chelsea should not be fourth.
01:09 They are 14th because they have won
01:11 the required amount of points to put them 14th in the league.
01:14 XG, XA, all the other underlying numbers,
01:18 they don't matter one bit whatsoever
01:21 if you do not put the ball in the back of the net,
01:23 if you don't stop it going in your own net.
01:25 I get it, any comments you want to leave
01:27 about how these numbers don't matter,
01:29 I agree with you.
01:30 But, but, but, but, but, but,
01:32 you have to put those numbers in the context
01:35 of the quotes that have been coming out of Chelsea
01:37 in the past week saying,
01:38 "Pochettino's job is not under threat whatsoever
01:42 because the powers that be, the owners,
01:43 the people above Pochettino believe that sooner or later,
01:47 the results will start to reflect the underlying numbers."
01:51 Those are Chelsea's words.
01:53 And thanks to that whole thing published by Opta,
01:55 we can see what those underlying numbers are,
01:57 that Chelsea are a team that are very wasteful
02:00 in front of goal, but are nonetheless
02:02 restricting the number of chances
02:04 they're allowing their opponents
02:05 and creating plenty for themselves.
02:08 Like Chelsea fans, you do not need me to do a video
02:10 saying you have been wasteful in front of goal this season.
02:13 Nicholas Jackson especially has missed a host
02:16 of really, really good chances,
02:17 but of course he's not, he's not the only one.
02:19 There's these ones from the Aston Villa game,
02:21 which feel incredibly guilt-edged.
02:23 The Nottingham Forest game was exactly the same.
02:26 Two 1-0 defeats that Chelsea suffered
02:28 despite creating loads of really good chances.
02:31 And more important than that, they lost both of those games
02:34 thanks to a rare foray up the other end of the pitch
02:37 by the opposition and two absolutely clinical finishes.
02:40 Like I am a big, big Oli Watkins fan,
02:42 but I think you give him or any striker
02:44 that exact same chance a hundred times,
02:48 probably only score it like five or six times
02:51 out of all of that.
02:52 Like the margins of getting it between Sanchez's legs
02:55 and right after the tackle,
02:57 it's an almost impossible goal to score.
02:59 And that's what does Chelsea.
03:00 And if you look at this graph that measures the quality
03:02 of the chances over the game,
03:04 Villa had an XG of 0.1 prior to the red card,
03:08 a red card in itself, which I thought was quite unlucky
03:11 because he is off balance and he does win the ball
03:13 and then he just sort of catches him on the way through.
03:16 They can't get anything to go right for them at the minute.
03:19 But the numbers, the underlying numbers
03:21 that Chelsea as a club were apparently putting
03:23 all their faith in suggest that this can't continue
03:27 for this long.
03:27 Sooner or later, these results are going to change
03:30 because the performances suggest that they are.
03:33 But just to explain this whole Opti-graph thing
03:35 and how they've got them forth,
03:36 what they've basically looked at is the quality of chances
03:39 Chelsea are creating and conceding in a game,
03:41 balancing those out to see which team would win
03:43 and then assigning the points accordingly.
03:46 Now look, you know as well as I do,
03:47 that is not how football works at all across 90 minutes.
03:51 But when there's a repeating pattern across a number of games
03:54 it is quite interesting.
03:56 And it does seem to be at least fairly spot on
03:58 that you would expect Man City and Liverpool
04:00 to be top of that league and they are.
04:02 And I think you'd also expect Luton
04:03 to be doing slightly better in a table like this
04:05 'cause they've had loads of those really big chances,
04:07 haven't they?
04:08 They've had a similar problem to Chelsea.
04:09 They're just not taking any of them.
04:10 And sure enough, they're up to 14th here.
04:13 But Chelsea, 10 entire places from the mire of 14th
04:17 to the golden dreamy light of fourth.
04:20 How can that be right?
04:22 I know XG is not for everybody,
04:23 but it is quite a useful measure of the quality of chances.
04:27 And just look at this.
04:28 Chelsea have scored five goals
04:31 in the Premier League this season off an XG of nearly 12.
04:35 And if we zoom right in on this graph,
04:37 obviously the coloured in ones, they represent actual goals,
04:40 but the size of the circle represents
04:42 the quality of the chance here.
04:44 You can see the big one on the penalty spot,
04:46 which is obviously Enzo Fernandez's missed penalty
04:48 against West Ham.
04:49 I think that represents about like 0.8 XG
04:52 'cause penalties go in about 80% of the time.
04:54 That's about as big as those circles ever get.
04:58 And there are two, three, possibly even four
05:00 absolutely massive ones in the six yard box.
05:04 Obviously the tiny ones all around the box,
05:06 yet that's fair enough.
05:07 You can't rely on them going in.
05:08 If those are where your chances are coming from,
05:10 then of course you're not gonna score that many goals.
05:12 But you can just see in the most dangerous part of that box,
05:15 there are loads and loads of really good chances.
05:18 I bet if you're a Chelsea fan,
05:20 you can probably point to each and every single one of those
05:22 and go, yeah, remember that?
05:23 Yeah, remember that?
05:24 Yeah, remember that?
05:25 And this is the thing, as stupid as it sounds,
05:27 if I ran a football club and I'm getting asked,
05:29 well, you're not thinking about getting rid of the manager,
05:31 the results have been really bad,
05:33 and I see this graph, I probably do look at it and think,
05:36 no, clearly they're doing something, right?
05:38 They're creating loads of chances.
05:40 Sooner or later, they've got to start taking these
05:43 because underperforming XG is such a huge, huge thing
05:48 in how football brain works now.
05:50 Like, I know it sounds counterintuitive,
05:52 but if that was a graph for one centre forward,
05:54 which it might as well be,
05:55 given that so much of it is Nicholas Jackson,
05:57 a lot of teams would be really interested
05:59 in trying to buy that player
06:01 because they would believe they'd found value
06:03 where other teams wouldn't be able to see it.
06:05 Like, oh, he's only scored five goals,
06:08 nobody's gonna be in for him,
06:09 but we've looked at the numbers,
06:10 he's actually got an XG of 12.
06:12 So if he just keeps getting those chances
06:14 and he keeps getting in those situations,
06:15 surely those goals will come
06:18 and we've got a bargain.
06:19 And I think it's fair to say,
06:20 we did kind of see that in the Brighton game.
06:22 Like, Nicholas Jackson took his goal really, really well.
06:24 It's such a calm, composed finish.
06:27 The one that was wrongly ruled out for offside,
06:29 that was a great finish as well
06:30 off a really nice bit of movement
06:31 on the outside of the box.
06:33 You can see these chances are gonna keep coming for him
06:35 'cause he's doing things right.
06:36 He's just gotta take them.
06:39 Like, for all he was getting absolutely rinsed
06:41 on social media for this miss in particular,
06:43 some of the movement he was doing in that Villa game
06:45 to create chances was just top level.
06:48 Like, here's another graph that's doing the rounds
06:51 at the minute on the Athletic.
06:52 Like, this measures both the difference
06:53 in expected goals against versus expected goals
06:56 and field tilt.
06:57 Now, what the first one means
06:58 is sort of like the running average
06:59 of how much better your chances are than the opponent's.
07:02 So if you're conceding loads of goals
07:03 and you're not creating any,
07:04 you're in the bottom left of this graph
07:06 and field tilts on there as well
07:07 to show the areas of the pitch
07:08 you're dominating over your opponents.
07:10 Basically, how much territorial advantage,
07:13 how strong is your overall performance.
07:15 So where you wanna be is in the top right
07:17 'cause you're creating better chances and conceding fewer
07:19 and you're also dominating the ball.
07:21 And just Man City, Arsenal and Chelsea
07:24 are miles ahead of everybody else.
07:26 Like, look, I know if you're not a Chelsea fan,
07:28 it's very easy to see the amount of money they've spent
07:31 and the fact the results aren't coming
07:32 and just think that's absolutely hilarious
07:35 'cause that's just what we like to laugh at in football.
07:38 So it is kind of hilarious,
07:40 but they are playing really well.
07:43 I think genuinely one of the major problems
07:45 Chelsea have this season is Tottenham Hotspur
07:48 'cause that's a new project as well.
07:50 It's required a huge amount of upheaval
07:52 and yes, they've not spent the same kind of money,
07:54 but had the same sort of squad turnover
07:56 and Posta Kogliwicz hit the ground running with that squad.
07:58 So it kind of makes it look
08:00 like everything's gone horribly wrong at Chelsea
08:02 when in reality, they're just like six Premier League games
08:05 into a major, major new project.
08:07 And also what definitely, definitely doesn't help
08:10 by the way, is this.
08:11 This was Chelsea starting 11 for the first game
08:13 of the season against Liverpool.
08:14 Our first proper look at what Pochettino's Chelsea
08:17 was gonna look like.
08:18 And it was like this three, four, three
08:21 with two sort of narrow tens and wing backs.
08:24 It was quite exciting.
08:25 And I thought personally, they played really well
08:27 against Liverpool.
08:27 They were good value for their draw.
08:28 They could have gone on and won it.
08:30 It looked like they were getting off to a good start.
08:32 But then this was their second starting 11
08:34 in the game against West Ham.
08:35 Rhys James picked up a bad injury
08:36 at the end of the Liverpool game.
08:37 He'd just been appointed their captain.
08:39 He was a major, major part of what they were doing.
08:41 He was gone, replaced by Gusto.
08:43 And Chukwumenka, he looked like a really important part
08:46 of what they were doing as well.
08:47 And he got taken off in the first half
08:48 because he got an injury.
08:49 And then this is their third game.
08:51 This is how they lined up against Luton.
08:52 They just spent all that money on Moises Caicedo
08:54 who looked miles off the pace.
08:57 He was dropped into the center of the pitch
08:58 forcing Fernandes out to here
09:00 to replace the injured Chukwumenka.
09:01 Again, a totally different system
09:04 'cause instead of like a really good runner and carrier,
09:06 now you've got a creative sort of 10 player over there.
09:09 It's just something else they had to figure out.
09:10 And then we've got the Forest game.
09:11 And for the first time in the season,
09:13 he's able to name an unchanged XI.
09:15 And as we discussed, they were really good in that game.
09:18 They just didn't take the chances that were being created
09:21 and got sucker punched at the other end.
09:23 Like Forest aren't mugs.
09:24 They'll give absolutely anybody a game.
09:26 And Chelsea had 77% possession in this game.
09:29 They completed three times as many passes.
09:31 They had 21 attempts on goal.
09:33 Like this was a good performance, just bad result.
09:37 Then they lined up against Bournemouth.
09:38 Now they've gone to Pochettino's favoured 4-2-3-1.
09:41 There's some reports of like Chilwell's taken an injury.
09:43 So they've kind of had to adapt it.
09:44 Mudrick comes into the team.
09:46 Caicedo's now injured.
09:47 So he's gone out.
09:48 Again, more things you have to adapt to.
09:51 More things you have to learn.
09:52 More unsettling, more upheaval.
09:54 And again, a good performance against Bournemouth,
09:57 but no goal.
09:58 Again, they dominate the ball.
10:00 They complete way more passes.
10:01 They have more chances on goal, more chances on target.
10:04 And very nearly should have lost that game
10:06 because Bournemouth ran at the other end
10:08 and nearly sucker punched them with Dominic Solanke.
10:10 But crucially, a veritable smorgasbord
10:13 of really well-created chances, all wasted.
10:15 And then finally, the Aston Villa game.
10:17 Caicedo comes back in.
10:18 They stay with the 4-2-3-1.
10:20 They are again on top.
10:21 They are again dominating.
10:22 They are again, completely more passes
10:24 and having more chances and dominating the ball
10:25 and just wasteful in front of goal.
10:28 And they get a red card and the game flips on its head
10:31 and a really improbable goal is scored.
10:33 And that's enough.
10:34 Look, I get it.
10:36 Football team spends a billion quid
10:37 and manages 0.8 points per game in the Premier League.
10:41 Literally displays form good enough
10:44 to get you relegated in pretty much every single season
10:48 of this competition.
10:49 I get it.
10:50 We love that as a gag.
10:51 Ha ha ha ha.
10:52 But this Chelsea team are good.
10:56 And this is before we even just get on
10:57 to the whole injuries thing.
10:58 Like this is an 11 of Chelsea players
11:00 who have been unavailable recently.
11:03 And some will argue it's better than the team
11:06 they actually put out.
11:07 Now I have seen some people looking at their upcoming
11:09 fixtures and thinking,
11:10 "Jesus, they might not get another point now
11:12 until like December.
11:14 They're going to get battered in some of these games."
11:16 But I promise you, I promise you,
11:19 Chelsea are going to win some of those games.
11:22 It will finally just click and you will see
11:26 how good this team actually...
11:29 Am I mad?
11:29 Am I losing?
11:30 I can't be the only person that sees
11:32 that this team's actually good and is making chances.
11:35 And when it starts taking them,
11:37 it's going to be a real forces season.
11:40 Like it can't just be me and the OptiData can see this.
11:43 Somebody else must be able to.
11:45 Right, that's it.
11:45 I'm going to stop before I go completely mad.
11:47 Chelsea fans, please let me know in the comments,
11:50 is this just me?
11:52 Am I going completely mad or can other people see this?
11:56 All opinions always welcome.
11:57 And why not, hey, this is a fun one.
12:00 Why not vote for 442 in the Football Content Awards,
12:04 which is on screen now,
12:05 and I'm 90% sure that's what it's called.
12:06 We're up for Best Media Organization,
12:08 which certainly sounds big and important.
12:10 So you can click the link below
12:11 and go and vote for this there.
12:12 And I know, I know,
12:13 I didn't get nominated in the YouTube category,
12:16 which is obviously baffling.
12:18 But if this was the only video you'd ever seen, fair.
12:21 In the meantime though,
12:22 grab me on Twitter or @XAdamCleary,
12:24 C-L-E-R-Y, the 442 socials.
12:26 They're always there.
12:27 You can go after them anytime you like in the video,
12:30 but until next time, I've been Adam Cleary.
12:33 I'll see you soon.
12:34 - Real soon.
12:37 - Yeah, bye.