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The Ben Jacobs Chelsea FC Column!

Chelsea are off to their worst top-flight start to a season after six games since 1978/79, and they went on to finish bottom that season. Sunday's disappointing 1-0 loss at home to Aston Villa also saw Chelsea fail to score in a Premier League-high 13 games in 2023.

Much like in the 1-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest before the international break, Chelsea simply failed to take their chances. The game, and Chelsea’s season thus far, was summed up when Raheem Sterling went clean through and failed to beat Emiliano Martinez. Although the offside flag went up, had Sterling scored VAR could well have given the goal. Not only did Sterling fail to finish, but he should have really laid the ball to his right to give Nicolas Jackson an easy tap in.

Chelsea, much like under Graham Potter, lack confidence and still a bit of identity despite an encouraging pre-season. And I think that's leading to a few poor decisions being made. This is normal under a new manager and with a young squad with an average age of just 22.5.

A collection of potential stars have arrived, but there's not much team chemistry yet.
Some of this is down to key injuries (Reece James and Christopher Nkunku in particular), but there remains a lack of leadership and arguably proven Premier League quality, something Pochettino places high value on.

It's a catch-22. You either buy for the future and hope the young players hit the ground running when thrown in at the deep end. Or you find older, shorter-term fixes who can make more of an instant impact. But given Chelsea haven’t been short of money in the past three windows it’s perhaps a bit of a surprise they have predominantly bought for the long term. That's why, for example, the new signings this summer had an average age of 20.5.

If you take the signings individually they all have fantastic profiles and some (Caicedo, Palmer, Lavia) can definitely make an impact both now and for many seasons to come. That’s why the future is still bright. But the short-term success feels more uncertain because the results aren’t coming. In contrast, West Ham went for James Ward-Prowse and Spurs bought James Maddison and both teams have been given an instant boost by those additions.

Although the data may back up Chelsea’s recruitment strategy, the players signed also aren’t used to a scenario with less senior players around to learn from. Just think of the benefit to many of Chelsea’s young midfielders if they could train with N’Golo Kante (who Chelsea obviously did want to keep) or even Mateo Kovacic. So often a squad player who is older can still be essential to the dynamic even when not playing as regularly providing they have the right kind of personality. James Milner at Liverpool (and now Brighton) is a great example of this.

The other factor impacting Chelsea is the players still learning what Pochettino expects. It’s easy to be an armchair tactician, especially when things aren’t going to plan. But I must say I don’t quite understand why Levi Colwill is playing at left-back. Colwill was outstanding at centre-back for Brighton and England Under-21s. And Chelsea never entertained a sale this summer because they know he can become, as Pochettino himself put it, "one of the greatest centre-backs in England"... 'centre-back' being the key word.