London is Blue Dispatch #024

These were the reflections of a Chelsea manager as his heavily rotated side lost their second game in three days, languishing in 10^th place.

Except these weren’t Pochettino’s words. They were Graham Potter’s, uttered after a defeat to the league’s bottom-placed side, Southampton. That was on February 18^th, after his 17th league game in charge, one less than Pochettino has had this far.

Men Against Boys

I began working on this week’s newsletter a day before the Everton game, because I knew what was coming and it is hard to write after getting slapped in the face. In the preview pod I predicted a 1-0 loss, we ironically exceeded my expectations with a 2-0 defeat. There was a collective sense of dread before the game at the prospect of coming up against a side that had dismantled the side that had given us a hiding. Men against boys was what it felt like at the end of the day. That’s because that’s exactly what it was.

Perhaps this is something we’ve all unconsciously known already, but as I put these numbers together it still invoked surprise. Below, you can find a table charting the mean and median career league starts of our most-used XI (most-starts) this season, compared to our competitors.

Of all the most-used XIs, Liverpool and Arsenal have no players with under 76 senior starts (two full league seasons.) Spurs and City each have two. We have five. The Everton game was Caicedo’s 77^th, he would have been the 6^th a week ago, more than half the team or 6/10 outfielders.

Three sides we aspire to challenge have well over two times the median starts our most-used XI has. That’s two full league seasons worth of experience. Liverpool, on this table as well as the PL’s, with a manager who finished 8^th in his first season, are almost at three times the number. The only side comparable to us, dropped 14 of 15 points from winning positions, going from top of the table after 10 games to fifth only six games later.

The total starts in our most used XI is 1359. The rotated XI vs Everton had 1,020; Young (463), Pickford (379) and Tarkowski (368) together have 1,210.

Stay Young, Stay Foolish

Distilling this potent brew of exuberance and naivety is key to our performances blowing hot and cold. We fought back thrice from losing positions to seal a 4-4 draw against the reigning champions in stoppage time, arguably the zenith of the Poch reign, but that has been balanced by accumulating the most fouls and yellows in the PL and a consistent loss of composure and focus in attack and defence that has proven costly.

Yes, you argue, placing those rose-tinted shades of nostalgia over your nose, but what about the 2012/13 season, when we had a 21-year-old Hazard, 24-year-old Mata and 20-year-old Oscar behind Fernando Torres? Well, Hazard had 114 starts for Lille in four full seasons in Ligue 1, Mata had a 133 for Valencia and Torres had 295. Only Oscar came with 47 starts in the Brasileirão. All four combined brought a median of 123.5 starts in attack. By comparison, Sterling (307), Jackson (28), Enzo (52) and Palmer (12) with 40 median starts, seem less attacking unit and more like a bring-your-kids-to-work day. Just to add, Mazacar and El Niño combined managed 32 goals that league season, but needed a 34-year-old veteran by the name of Frank Lampard to score almost half of those himself (15) to get us past 70 goals.

So who is to blame for all of this? Why must we always look for blame in the first place? Here’s a table with players in our squad other than the most-used XI and their career starts.

A majority of our issues can be encapsulated by what’s in the table above. Chilwell, Nkunku, Reece, Badiashile and Fofana, all five arguably in our strongest XI, account for 548 career starts. Reece and Chilwell, bestowed with leadership roles this season, haven’t been in the same matchday squad this campaign. Badiashile has made three starts after 174 days out with a groin injury. Nkunku and Fofana haven’t appeared at all.

Mudryk, whose every touch remains under infinite scrutiny, has career starts equaling one Championship season at 22. Carney Chukwuemeka, with 6 career starts, was trusted by Pochettino over Mudryk on the left-wing when both were fit early in the season. The table also hints that not all starts are equal – Maatsen (79) and Petrovic (121) (Petrovic in Serbia and the US, Maatsen in the Netherlands, League One and the Championship) haven’t had a single start. While Enzo, key cog of Argentina’s world cup winning machine and bought for a 100m+, has only 52 career starts. By all means, still a kid. Not many remember his own goal against Australia and the only Argentinian missed penalty in a crucial shootout vs Netherlands. But in a team full of freshly enlisted troops instead of his country’s veterans, trivial inconsistencies appear glaring.

Does experience and massive career starts fix everything? Absolutely not. For instance, here’s the number of career starts Chelsea’s lost via permanent and loan departures from last season’s squad. Incredible experience, a whopping mean of 237.6 starts. We finished 12th.

Watching Potter by the end of his reign felt a lot like watching someone holding a paper umbrella in the middle of a cloudburst. It is vital not to make that mistake again. There’s only so many young players lacking PL experience Pochettino can improve at the same time. One can hardly blame the manager for injuries to half of a 25 man-squad, including both first-choice fullbacks and 10s, two key centerbacks and both rotating options for a central midfield duo that has travelled frequently to South America. Vision-wise, here’s what the strongest XI could/should look like before the end of the season.

As you can see, it’s still a long way off, but it does look better, despite suffering in total starts due to the absence of Thiago Silva. The recent reports linking us to a new CF, centre mid and a centerback are all the experience-light spots in our squad.

Time

The median age of the most used XI this season is just 23. So if the team behaves like a U23 against a seasoned, settled side at times, you know why. The injured key players returning, in all probability, won’t be an immediate fix either. The only things that bridge the gap between 1251 and 2000+ collective starts is time, two seasons worth of regular playing time, and/or buying more to make up the deficit. You can fire Pochettino, but it won’t make our players heal quicker, or make them more experienced at executing tactical instructions, handling high-pressure game states and being consistent.

Pep has had seven and Klopp eight years to make up that gap, buying along the way but more importantly, reaching cup finals and finishing in European spots consistently. Poch is perhaps not in that elite bracket yet, but Arteta was given three before he made a charge for the title. Pochettino has had 17 games, with a injury-depleted, albeit high quality U23 squad. Evidence of free-flowing football from preseason with a fit squad, going toe-to-toe with three table-topping sides all but forgotten within a month. All I’m trying to say is, time and patience just may be the answer.