Watching Chelsea this season ought to come with a health warning. Goals arrive in abundance, leads are established before spectators have settled into their seats and clean sheets have become an alien concept. Xabi Alonso has transformed Chelsea into one of the Premier League’s most thrilling spectacles.
They have scored 15 goals and conceded 13. That’s 4.7 goals per game in six matches. Chelsea are a neutral’s dream, but is it sustainable?
They have scored 15 goals from an expected goals total of just 8.4, an over-performance of 6.6. An 18.3% conversion rate is second only to Manchester City’s 19.1%, while eight of their 15 goals have come from shots with xG below 0.13. The five goals against Bournemouth last weekend came from an xG of just 0.75.
Cole Palmer, João Pedro and Morgan Rogers complement each other’s qualities. Palmer’s instinct to drift into pockets of space and dictate attacks gives Chelsea a creative focal point; Rogers provides the direct running and ball-carrying to unsettle defences; and João Pedro offers the movement to stretch opponents in behind and the composure to finish when chances arrive. They rotate roles too, giving defenders a constant headache – they can’t crowd out one of the trio without giving another space.
Their forwards deserve credit for their clinical finishing but Chelsea’s attacking numbers will surely revert to the mean at some point, so they need to improve defensively. They have conceded 13 goals, the joint most in the league, and have not kept a clean sheet in the Premier League since January – a run of 22 games. It is a far more volatile position than a serious European contender would want.
Alonso’s structure is built to commit players forward; that high-risk, high-reward approach helped his Bayer Leverkusen team win the Bundesliga but Chelsea are not yet set up to protect against the risk. When they are in possession, both wing-backs, their two attacking midfielders and João Pedro push on. That leaves the back three and two midfielders covering, and one of the central pair often gets pulled forward too.
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