How will we do this season? What the attacking & defensive stats tell us
A look at the data to see where we'll be based on potential goals scored, conceded and points needed
Those who read this site regularly will know I wrote two articles last season, using player data to predict how many goals we’d score and ultimately how many points we’d achieve. To my own surprise, I admit, I was pretty accurate in my prediction. I said we’d get between 58-64 points, and we ended with 63 points.
So of course, now the transfer window is over, it would be remiss of me not to do the same exercise for this season.
In this first half of the season piece, I’m going to look at our main goalscorers, gauge how many games they might play, how many goals and assists they might get and also look where goals might come from in midfield and defence. I’ll also look at our defensive data and see how many goals we might concede over the season.
After assessing all that, I’ll try and predict where we’ll be in terms of points on Jan 1st 2025, after game week 19. Then in January I’ll do another examination taking into account form, injuries and any January signings and figure out where we might finish.
The first thing to do is look at our overall stats for last season in the PL.
Chelsea PL 23/24 season:
38 games
18 wins
11 defeats
9 draws
77 goals scored
63 goals conceded
63 points - 6th place.
Last season it took 69 points to achieve top 4 and CL football. In recent years the 4th placed team has got, respectively, 69, 71, 71, 67, 66 points. So to get top four this year, I’d argue we need at least 69 points, and at most, 74 points. Chelsea need an increase of 6-11 points on last season to get top 4.
The other key point is, depending on European results of the English clubs, 5th place could yet be a Champions League (CL) place, and we were only 3 points off 5th place last season.
All wins by English teams in all European competitions count the same towards the coefficient which decides which leagues get the 5th place. So if we do well in the Conference League, it could help 5th become a CL place, and we’d probably only need about 65-68 points to finish 5th, only a small increase from last season.
For now let's focus on the top 4 though, and I would argue, to get top 4, you’d want to be at around 33-35 points after 19 games.
So, let's dig into those stats. I’m going to do them over a season here. I think in terms of goals scored, its a fair assessment to make, though I think our defence will improve over the season. Then at the end of January I can look where we are, and re-assess my expectations based on data we have then, including any new signings or departures, and injuries.
Nicolas Jackson is currently going to be our main striker. I think he’s tremendously underrated. His raw data is clear. Jackson has scored 16 goals and got 6 assists in his 38 PL games so far. But notably, he’s scored 8 goals in his last 8 Chelsea matches. His chance conversion rate last season, 50%, was higher than Erling Haaland (48%). Now I’m not saying he’s better than Haaland, but people focus way too much on his misses in my view.
It’s clear he’s improving and adapting to the PL. Bear in mind he’s only just 22, and has played as a striker for one year in his whole career. To get these numbers in any circumstances is good, to get them in those circumstances, is an excellent start. Given his work ethic, and his age, he will almost certainly improve and those numbers will go up this season. He’s got 2 goals and an assist in 3 PL games already this season.
I’d actually go so far as to say he’ll get about 18-20 PL goals and 7-8 assists this season.
Cole Palmer is the next one. I think he’s perfectly capable of doing what he did last season. He’s a world class player and he already has one goal and 4 assists in 3 PL games this season, and will be our penalty taker. I think his assists might even go up this year - he got 11 last year and has 4 already this year. I’ve got him down for 18-20 PL goals and 15-16 assists. He also won’t be playing any midweek games until the new year at least, meaning he’ll be fresh for PL games.
Then we have multiple attacking options around who I think will rotate. Noni Madueke (who already has 3 PL goals), Christopher Nkunku, Jadon Sancho, Joao Felix, Pedro Neto and Mykhailo Mudryk.
Given injuries and rotation, there’s a decent chance most will play the minutes of at least 20 PL games, with Nkunku, Sancho, Noni and Neto playing the most.
I’m not sure if Nkunku will start regularly in the league (though he’s good enough to do so), but I think he will start a fair number of games and come off the bench regularly. I think overall he can get 6 or 7 PL goals and 5 assists if he’s rotated or comes off the bench in central positions, given his previous scoring record. He could potentially get more, depending on his minutes.
Noni already has 3 goals this season and seems to have a great link up with Palmer, so I’m gonna back him to score 10 PL goals, and get about 4 assists. He could of course get more, but I’m trying not to get too carried away.
Neto scored only 3 PL goals in 20 games last season but you;d think he can improve his goal ratio with better players. He got 9 assists in those 20 games, so its clear that’s his strength, indeed he already has one assist in 3 PL games for Chelsea. I think can get 4 or 5 PL goals and at least 8/9 assists this season, even as a rotational player, again, more if he plays more.
Jadon Sancho has never been a massive goalscorer, but I do think his ability in tight spaces and against low blocks will give him a fair few assists. Again I think he’ll end up playing at least 20 PL games either from the start or on the bench. In half a season at Dortmund last year, he got 3 goals and 3 assists in 21 games. I think 4 or 5 goals, 5 assists, in the equivalent of 20 PL games over the season, is a perfectly good expectation. Again, the more he plays, the more he’ll contribute.
Joao Felix is more of a goalscorer than assist merchant. He scored 10 goals in 41 games for Barcelona, a ration of 1 in 4. He has scored 5 goals in 16 Chelsea appearances including his loan spell, nearly the same ratio. Again, not sure he’ll be a regular, but I do think he’ll do the equivalent of 20 PL games in terms of minutes, so I’d say he’ll get 5 or 6 PL goals, and maybe 1 or 2 assists.
I’ll be honest, I don’t have much faith in Mudryk. Maresca has already shown his frustration with him and I don’t think he’ll play much in the PL, as others will start above him. Nevertheless, he could get 3 PL goals and 3 assists I think.
So taking the lower end of these predictions, these attacking players could score 65-68 goals this season.
I think we can expect a minimum of 10 PL goals from the likes of Enzo Fernandez, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, Moises Caicedo, Romeo Lavia, and other midfielders.
In terms of our defenders, I’d expect 5-8 goals from them combined.
So from that, we'll get a minimum of 83 PL goals this season, with the potential to up to 90-95 goals. Either way, we’ll score more goals than last season. If we sign a striker in January, this may potentially go up.
Now, the defensive stats. On the face of it, our defence is currently our weak spot. I actually believe the CBs we have are better than we’re seeing. They are currently learning a new tactical set up and building chemistry, and the midfielders in front of them are too. I think this will improve over the season.
One interesting stat though is, that in our 5 games under Enzo Maresca, we’ve conceded an average of 3.66 shots on target per game. Under Mauricio Pochettino, we conceded 5.1 shots on target per game. This suggests that actually the structure we have is stopping the opposition having as many chances.
Over time, its reasonable to suggest we might actually concede less goals. Certainly I don’t see us conceding 63 PL goals this season, maybe more like 45-55 goals, which still isn’t great but is an improvement. Enough of an improvement to maybe get us top 4 and CL football.
These two stats would improve our goal difference by 14 over the season, and likely would give us enough change in results, that would get us the 9-10 points we need to get top 4.
It’s as simple as this. If we turn just two draws into wins, maybe two defeats into draws, and one loss into a win this season, that’s potentially top 4 secured.
If we improve more significantly, we could even do more than that if we play consistently for 90 mins like we did in the second half v Wolves and first half v Crystal Palace.
Being realistic, I do think we’ll concede more goals in the first half of the season, and get less points, than we do in the second. We’re currently learning a new system, so there will be teething problems as we’ve seen already. We’ll concede less goals as the season goes on, though I think the goalscoring will be pretty consistent.
Indeed, we saw this happen last season, when we were 11th even in March, and ended up 6th, only 5 points away from top 4. And our squad is stronger and has a year more experience, so no reason this couldn’t happen again, or better.
We have 16 games of the first 19 this season left, and have 4 points, 7 goals scored, 5 conceded. So where will we be after 19?
I think we’ll have scored 40-44 goals, and conceded about 30-33 goals. So, as before, he’s my three scenarios, with an added “doomsday” scenario - which I think is so unlikely as to be almost impossible, but of course, technically could happen.
Best case: 9 wins, 2 defeats, 4 draws in the next 16 (35 points after 19 games, win % of 52%)
Medium-case: 8 wins, 3 defeats, 5 draws in the next 16 (33 points after 19 games, win % of around 50%)
Worst case: 7 wins, 4 defeats, 5 draws in the next 16 (30 points after 19 games, win % of 42 %)
Doomsday: 6 wins, 4 defeats, 5 draws in the next 16 (28 points after 19 games, win % of 36%).
The best case scenario would have seen us 5th/6th after 19 games last season. Even the worst case scenario would have had us 8th after 19 games last season, though would have us 10 points off top 4. The doomsday scenario would see us around 10th/11th, exactly where we were in Jan 1st last season (when we finished 6th).
My own prediction is near enough the medium case scenario. That should have us around the top 6 come January 2025 and within touching distance of the top 4. I currently believe we’ll improve in the second half of the season with 10/11 wins, 5/6 draws and 3 defeats in the last 19 games.
That would make our season 19/20 wins 11/12 draws 7 defeats - 69-71 points. The latter would definitely be enough for the top 4. Though I suspect it will go down to the last game or penultimate games. Of course, this is a prediction, it could change over the season, let's see.
I think the absolute worst case scenario of this season is we get around 65 points, similar to last season, and finish 5th or 6th. That would be disappointing but not a disaster. 5th place could yet be a CL place of course, as I said.
These predictions for the season could all change in January, depending on where we are, how we play, and form and injuries. But my prediction for January is we’ll be at around 32-34 points, which could be anything from 4th-7th.
I believe in Enzo Maresca and I think we’ll improve under him over the season. With the attacking talent we have, scoring goals shouldn’t be too much of a problem. I think as our defence improves, our consistency will improve.
It’s certainly going to be interesting to see how this season turns out.
The Score
Very rationally presented and I agree with what your saying in particular re Jackson it’s a shame that to be rated properly he needs to get hatricks in consecutive games but that’s the fan base for you.