The One Player Who Would Fix Chelsea's Biggest Problem
Chelsea's options as they reside in the middle of the Premier League table.
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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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11:45 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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11:57 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.