London is Blue Dispatch #063

With the Bournemouth game done & dusted, we are past the 10% mark of the league season. And with most of the squad twiddling their thumbs as other teams played in the 3^rd round of the EFL Cup or in the opening round of fixtures in the Champions League, it perhaps offers the ideal moment for a little introspection. So after six preseason fixtures and six official ones, we take a look at the good, the bar and the ugly of the new season this far.

The Good

While the win at Bournemouth may have been too scrappy and last-ditch for many, but Maresca has side-stepped two of Chelsea’s historical banana skins early in the season. There been no vitality for Chelsea at the Vitality, winning only one of their last four, a run starting with a humiliating 4-0 thrashing suffered under Maurizio Sarri. The other bogey fixture went even better as Chelsea scored six at Molineux after winning only one of their last six away to Wolves. Add to that the Blues are slightly outperforming their expected goals and goalkeeping metrics, and VERY early indicators to point to Maresca having fortune on his side.

The Blues have also dropped from 11.7 fouls a game last season (5^th highest) to 10.8, placing them 15^th. The yellow card column also looked decent with 8 yellows in 3 games (we were were 1^st with a 106 last season), but Anthony Taylor tossing them out of his pocket like confetti has pushed us back to top again with 16.

The Bad

The underlying metrics, offensively & defensively, aren’t at the level top four sides need to be at. In attack, the Blues have managed 47 shots, 12^th best in the PL. They have also conceded 50 shots, placing them bang in midtable at 10^th. We’re also tied 15^th for touches in the penalty box, a sizable dip from last season where were seven places and 7.3 touches higher. While Chelsea sit 2^nd on the scorers chart, six of their eight goals came in a single game, with only two coming from the other three. Should the attacking metrics stay consistent, an expensively assembled attack won’t deliver on its potential firepower.

We’ve also conceded two from set-pieces already, despite the appointment of a new set-piece specialist in Bernardo Cueva. This is the tied for 3^rd highest in the PL, while Arsenal, City and Brighton have conceded none. These fine margins may not seem like much now, but will almost certainly make a dent long-term.

The Ugly

Injury issues continue to plague the side with Malo Gusto, Reece James and Romeo Lavia all suffering inside four games of the new season. While there are no publicly available metrics to prove this, the fitness/conditioning of the squad also seems to have taken a hit with multiple players, especially those returning from injuries like Pedro Neto, Christopher Nkunku and Dewsbury-Hall looking some way off the pace.

Early days for Renato Veiga, but the midfield quality & depth feels weaker than last season. With Maresca moving away from the 4-3-3 to a 4-2-3-1 and eliminating the 8 role, the decision to swap Gallagher for KDH feels a poor one from everyone involved. While it is understandable that long-term development was prioritized for Andrey Santos & Lesley Ugochukwu, but both would have made vital deputies for Moises Caicedo, whose hamstrings could look like extra-crisp bacon by the middle-point of the season. After Disasi’s struggles, ostracizing Chalobah also increasingly looks like the wrong call. While numbers make it seem like there is adequate depth to compete on multiple fronts, the quality has certainly dimmed, at least in the midfield department.

There are however, encouraging signs from Maresca himself. His willingness to move away from his reputation as a dogmatic manager might hold him good stead in the long term. His use of Sancho on debut, a stark difference from how he used Fatawu and Mavididi at Leicester last season, showed a manager that had done due-diligence on his new signing, tweaking Cucurella’s role to support Sancho in the absence of a overlapping/underlapping element from 8. Still too early to make grandiose long-term predictions of course, but always nice to know early on in your journey whether you’re on the right path.