Chelsea's January transfer window, and still reside in the middle of the Premier League table. With funds too tight to sign the likes of Victor Osimhen, there is an alternative that's much closer to home... and much cheaper. Newcastle United's Callum Wilson.
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00:00 [DING]
00:02 Anyway, yes, Chelsea.
00:03 This is Chelsea right now.
00:05 They are getting better.
00:06 They are getting their injuries sorted.
00:07 They appear to be building a little bit of momentum.
00:10 The last couple of results in the league were really good,
00:12 and they overcame that big borough hiccup.
00:14 So they're into a final.
00:15 It's finally starting to come together,
00:17 but they do still have a number of problems.
00:20 Now you know, as well as I know, that you should never
00:23 try and fix your big problems in the January transfer window.
00:27 Almost never, ever works.
00:28 The market is too crazy.
00:30 The players are even crazier.
00:32 But while you cannot fix them, you can mitigate against them.
00:38 I think that's the word.
00:39 Mitigate, verb, formal, to make something less harmful,
00:42 unpleasant, or bad.
00:43 That'll do.
00:44 And the main problem that Chelsea should mitigate--
00:46 I feel really clever now-- is up here
00:48 at this exact end of the pitch.
00:51 They do not put the ball in the back of the net
00:54 anywhere near as much as they should.
00:57 And this is legitimately such a unique problem
00:59 this Chelsea team have.
01:01 Because every team wants to put the ball
01:02 in the back of the net more.
01:03 It's the [BLEEP] objective of football.
01:05 But Chelsea creates such high quality chances.
01:08 They get in on goal so many times and do not score.
01:13 Now, I know not everybody cares about xG,
01:15 but it is still a very good measure
01:17 of the quality of your attacking output
01:19 rather than just simply the volume of your attacking
01:21 output.
01:22 And if we look at that, Chelsea are insane.
01:24 Chelsea have an expected goals tally of just under 42
01:28 this season, which is the second highest in the entire league
01:32 behind Liverpool.
01:33 Now, again, whether you think xG is important or not,
01:36 they must be doing something right in terms
01:37 of their chance creation.
01:38 Because they keep finding themselves
01:40 in all these situations that score really high
01:43 on that metric.
01:44 And if you look at all the teams around them,
01:45 they're really good at scoring goals.
01:47 And if you look at all the teams at the bottom,
01:49 they're really bad at it.
01:50 So something checks out.
01:51 But then if we start to add the actual numbers to this,
01:54 it paints a bit of a picture of what's going wrong.
01:56 Because in terms of chance creation measured by xG,
01:59 they're second in the league.
02:00 But then in terms of the number of shots they actually have,
02:03 they drop slightly to fourth.
02:05 And then in terms of the number of those shots
02:07 that are on target, they drop all the way down
02:10 to ninth, which is where they are in the league.
02:12 And out of those shots on target,
02:13 how many actually end up in the back of the net?
02:15 They are ninth as well for the number of goals scored overall.
02:18 And then if you want to drill that down even further
02:21 and look at the percentage of shots that lead to goals,
02:23 they drop all the way down to 11.
02:25 And then finally, if you work out the percentage of shots
02:28 on target that lead to goals,
02:30 they drop all the way down to 13.
02:32 So, oh no, that's weird, isn't it?
02:34 If we measure the quality of all the chances they get,
02:36 they score really, really highly and they make loads of them
02:39 and they should be scoring loads of goals.
02:40 When we look at the actual goddamn facts of the matter,
02:44 how many of these shots happen,
02:45 how many of them go on target,
02:47 how many of them go in the goal,
02:49 they just go down and down and down and down the table.
02:51 And thus, my friends, if we take the bacon of expected goals
02:55 and we combine it with the eggs
02:57 of just goal scoring statistics,
02:58 we get this horrible, rubbery, stale, cold breakfast
03:03 of unprecedented goal scoring mis-f*****ry.
03:06 Chelsea have underperformed their expected goals this season
03:10 by more than eight,
03:12 the highest in the entire Premier League by some way.
03:17 Now, Chelsea fans, you will know
03:19 that there are many culprits for this.
03:21 The really glaring misses have come in all shapes and sizes
03:25 from all over the pitch.
03:26 But if there is one man more culpable than anyone else,
03:29 it is Nicholas Jackson.
03:31 Now, let's just get a couple of things straight here,
03:34 by the way.
03:34 Nicholas Jackson is 22 years old
03:37 and I think genuinely will go on and develop
03:39 into one of the most well-rounded,
03:41 positionally intelligent strikers in all of Europe.
03:45 But Chelsea didn't need that this summer.
03:48 They needed a guaranteed goal scorer.
03:50 And right now, at this stage of his career,
03:53 that isn't who he is.
03:54 He may well be one day, but certainly not this season
03:57 and almost certainly not next season either.
04:00 Now, just to bear that out in the numbers again,
04:02 he is currently in the top 10% of the entire Premier League
04:06 in terms of expected goals,
04:08 because as we illustrated,
04:09 Chelsea are creating very good chances.
04:12 But he is absolutely bang in the middle rank average
04:15 in terms of the goals he scored
04:17 and how many shots he takes to get a goal
04:19 and how often he gets his shots on target.
04:21 And again, just to do exactly what we did
04:22 for Chelsea's goal scoring as a team,
04:24 if you take those high metrics
04:26 in terms of the quality of chances he's getting
04:28 and then you maths it all together
04:30 with his actual performance,
04:31 you get this, a really dramatic underperformance.
04:36 Just to flush all those graphs down the toilet
04:38 and put it in nice words you can repeat to people in the pub,
04:41 Nicholas Jackson is currently in the top 10%
04:45 for the chances being given to him
04:47 and in the bottom 10% for how he translates that into goals.
04:52 So that is Chelsea's big problem.
04:55 It can't be solved long-term in this window merely mitigated.
04:58 So how do you mitigate it?
05:01 Said that word so many times now.
05:03 Well, what you do is you go and buy Callum Wilson.
05:08 Right, so full disclosure here, my friends,
05:13 I am a Newcastle United supporter.
05:15 So for me to sit in this chair
05:17 and say that Chelsea should buy Callum Wilson
05:19 is the emotional equivalent of finding out
05:22 one of your friends has gone through a bad breakup
05:24 and saying, "Hey, buddy, do you know what might cheer you up
05:26 as a little rebound?
05:27 Why don't you go and (beep) my wife?"
05:29 But nonetheless, that is what they should do.
05:33 See, the main problem Nicholas Jackson has
05:34 is not a technical one.
05:36 He is more than capable of being a lethal goal scorer
05:39 somewhere down the line.
05:40 The problem he's got is that he does not have
05:42 natural goal scoring instincts.
05:45 And they do take time to develop
05:46 if you haven't just got them.
05:48 And as a result, the main fault he has as a goal scorer
05:51 is that time and time again,
05:53 he will just accidentally drift away
05:55 from the optimal position to score a goal.
05:57 So when the chance finally does arrive to him,
05:59 it's much harder than it needs to be.
06:01 Now, just as an example here,
06:03 you can see the way Chelsea are building up.
06:05 Jackson's in a really good starting position
06:07 and they could hit this exact area between the goalposts
06:11 and that would give them a really good chance of scoring.
06:13 But as the play develops,
06:13 he just seems to be drawn away from that area,
06:16 possibly to just find a bit more space
06:18 or to evade his marker.
06:20 But what he should be doing is just holding his position
06:23 and trusting his teammates to find him.
06:25 As a result, when they eventually do,
06:27 he's moved out of the right position to be in
06:29 and it's just a really hard chance.
06:31 And as well as not really trusting his teammates to find him,
06:33 he doesn't seem to trust himself either.
06:35 Like Chelsea fans, how many times have you seen this
06:38 already this season?
06:39 The time to take this shot is right here.
06:42 It's never going to be a great chance,
06:43 but you've got a much better opportunity
06:46 if you hit it early.
06:47 Instead, he wants to just take this touch,
06:49 which isn't going to get him anywhere.
06:50 It's not going to get past the defender.
06:52 It's not going to open the angle up.
06:53 All it does is make it even harder again.
06:55 And we can see this, by the way, in his seasonal heat map.
06:58 The guy has been all over the pitch for Chelsea this year,
07:01 finding the ball, linking up with the play,
07:04 creating space to allow your Sterlings
07:06 and your Palmers to get in,
07:07 which don't get me wrong,
07:08 is probably part of the plan for Chelsea
07:10 that he's supposed to drift here and there.
07:12 But it always seems like he's doing it
07:14 even when he shouldn't be.
07:15 Might be a confidence thing,
07:16 might just be that because Palmer just has such
07:19 like top level belief in himself
07:20 and Sterling's such an experienced player,
07:22 they both want to get in on goal as well.
07:24 Maybe he doesn't feel confident
07:25 being the one that's going to be like,
07:26 "No, do you know what? I'm staying here.
07:28 This is my position."
07:29 Or maybe that's what he's instructed to do.
07:32 Either way, makes life so much harder for him.
07:35 Just to give you the most direct comparison,
07:36 this is Callum Wilson's seasonal heat map.
07:38 And yes, of course, he will drop around to receive the ball,
07:40 to relieve pressure, to go and collect it
07:42 when you castle are sitting deep.
07:44 But there's so much more of a concentration
07:46 in and around the goal.
07:47 It's so rare to see him out wide doing his work
07:51 because he knows the best place to score
07:53 is between the width of the goals.
07:55 And on the one hand, that does sometimes mean
07:56 that the ball just doesn't come to him.
07:58 As a Castle fan, I can tell you,
07:59 I've watched him have several really quiet games
08:02 where you barely knew he was there.
08:04 But on the other hand,
08:05 means when the ball does come to him,
08:06 you have no doubt whatsoever that he's going to score.
08:09 But this header in particular is absolutely great.
08:12 There is no space in that box at all.
08:14 He could be moving around.
08:15 He could be trying to drop off the defender.
08:17 He could be just trying to find a pocket
08:19 where he knows he can receive the ball,
08:21 but he doesn't want to do that.
08:22 He knows that where he's standing
08:24 is the best place to score from.
08:25 So he puts his trust in his teammates
08:28 to find him with that ball.
08:29 And they do.
08:30 So he scores.
08:31 Same again here in this game.
08:32 You can so easily imagine Jackson
08:33 just leaving this area entirely
08:35 'cause he knows it's going to be really difficult
08:37 for anybody to find him.
08:38 But Wilson doesn't do that at all.
08:41 He just waits for the ball to come to him.
08:42 And when it does,
08:43 he's put himself in the best possible position to score.
08:46 And if we just compare all those numbers all over again,
08:48 Callum Wilson is another player who is in the top 10%
08:52 in terms of the chances that fall to him.
08:54 But unlike Nicholas Jackson,
08:55 there's virtually no drop off
08:56 in how he translates those chances
08:58 into shots, shots on targets, and goals.
09:01 Which means by extension,
09:02 there is no massive underperformance
09:04 between what is being offered to him as a striker
09:07 and what his contribution is in front of goal.
09:09 And just to run this all the way back
09:11 to that first set of near impenetrable nerdy numbers
09:14 we had at the start of this video,
09:15 if you take Chelsea's overall XG performance this season,
09:19 pack all that meat into the sausage machine
09:21 of Callum Wilson's goal scoring prowess,
09:24 they would have eight more goals this season.
09:27 And if those eight goals got them even just three more wins,
09:32 they'd be fifth right now,
09:33 which could very well get you
09:35 Champions League football next season.
09:37 Christ, man, if it got them three wins and three draws,
09:40 they'd be joint second with City, Arsenal,
09:43 and Aston Villa right now.
09:44 Like that's how close they are to being competitive.
09:47 But the thing is,
09:48 this is why I said Chelsea could go out
09:50 and do something crazy at the start of this video,
09:53 because under their current model,
09:55 they're never gonna buy a Callum Wilson.
09:57 They wanna go out and buy all these top young stars
10:00 around Europe, put them on really long contracts,
10:02 and then either they'll go on to be world beaters
10:04 who win loads of stuff for Chelsea,
10:06 or their value will just increase
10:07 and they can sell them at a massive profit.
10:09 That is the business model
10:10 and it precludes signing a Callum Wilson.
10:13 But what dear friends would be even worse
10:15 to that business model would be finishing ninth
10:18 and missing out on European football.
10:20 Now, yes, I know they're in the cup final
10:21 that might get them there indirectly
10:23 and they're not far off,
10:24 but right now, again, they are languishing in mid table
10:28 with a striker coming back from AFCON
10:30 who is not going to drag them back up the table,
10:34 at least not this season.
10:35 And you know, Wilson might be 31,
10:37 but he has only got 18 months left on his contract
10:40 and is clearly at a club that is willing to part
10:42 with some of its better but aging and well earning players
10:46 to free up some FFP or S or whatever it's called
10:50 of their own.
10:50 Getting him on some kind of short term deal
10:52 where he can be your main man for the rest of this season
10:55 and hopefully drag you a couple of places up the league
10:57 and then be a part of the first team next season
11:00 as you're hopefully back into Europe
11:02 and Jackson continues to develop
11:04 is worth breaking your transfer model for.
11:07 And that's why as much as it pains me to say it,
11:09 I think Chelsea should go out and buy Callum Wilson.
11:13 And I think Callum Wilson would really relish that challenge
11:15 and it's definitely one of the players
11:16 Newcastle feel like they should part with
11:19 in the next few months.
11:19 So it works genuinely for every single party involved.
11:23 Now, if you have enjoyed a single words of this
11:26 and first off, very humble, thank you very much,
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11:30 our monthly subscribers record.
11:31 And oh my God, we're this close to doing it.
11:34 So if you would, please consider subscribing to the channel.
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11:45 So if you liked it and you want to smash it,
11:49 I don't know what's wrong with me.
11:51 In the meantime, you can get me on Twitter
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11:55 442 socials in the corner of the video.
11:57 This is normally where I would reach
11:58 for a copy of the magazine and show it to you,
12:00 but I haven't got one at the minute
12:01 'cause I just gave that last one to Joe Cole,
12:04 of all people you see, Chelsea fans,
12:06 I'm one of you really.
12:08 But yes, that's the whole outro, that's all I've got.
12:10 And I'm now awake to see just how transparent
12:13 I actually was in this video.
12:15 You could like see through my little, little nipples.
12:19 It's been a long week, goodbye.