Why have results tailed off? Looking at the data..

There's one clear reason, and maybe not what you'd think

The takes I’ve seen on Twitter since the Ipswich defeat are genuinely some of the worst I’ve ever seen. I didn’t think a fanbase would be calling for the manager’s head or setting deadlines for his tenure after just two defeats, but here we are. Stuff like that is part of what’s killing my love of football.

People can have their views, fine. But personally, I think people are either way too emotional or just defaulting to the position they always held but never expressed because we were winning. Either way, there’s a lack of objectivity.

I do my best to form opinions based on objective evidence, not emotions or agendas. So lets look at some evidence from our last four PL games - Brentford, Everton, Fulham and Ipswich, to see what’s going on.

First, lets look at player fatigue.

“Wait, what???” you say, “We had two teams. There’s no excuse for them to be tired!!!”

It is true we’ve had two teams, but of our fixtures in December only 2 were Conference League games. Outside of this, we’ve played 7 PL games in December, in 30 days, that’s a PL game every 3-4 days. Something this team hasn’t done all season. We’d been playing one PL game a week, mostly, until December and now those players have had to go from a game every 7 days to one every 3-4 days. Its a dramatic shift.

The four games I mention happened over 15 days, so just over two weeks. A game every 3 or 4 days.

In the four games I’ve mentioned, all physical games, which used a lot of energy, 5 players, Cole Palmer, Tosin Adarabioyo, Moises Caicedo, Enzo Fernandez, Levi Colwill - half our team - have started all of them and played most of the minutes. Marc Cucurella played three of those games and also played a Conference League game, so four games in the same period. In fact these 6 players have started most PL games this month, a game every 3 or 4 days.

Something they, and this team, hasn’t had to do so much before.

We’ve not been able to rotate too much in these positions either. Romeo Lavia, Wesley Fofana, Benoit Badiashile, Reece James have all been injured. Mikhaylo Mudryk is currently banned. So at a time where we’ve needed squad depth the most, we’ve had 5 players not available - all of whom would have got legitimate minutes, or given us options off the bench. Lavia and Fofana may well have started 3-4 games, Badishille may have started a couple too.

Giving the likes of Caicedo, Enzo, Fofana (if fit) and Levi for example, a rest for a 2-3 PL games, using them from the bench if needed, would have alleviated the strain on the players. We looked visibly tired at the end of the Fulham game and have done in the last 2-3 games.

We’re about to go back to one PL game per week in January, in fact there’s a 10 day break between the Crystal Palace game and the Bournemouth game, that will give our PL team a much needed break.

Fatigue has been a major issue, like it or not. It can also lead to tiredness from defenders at the end of games, poor finishing (especially at the end of games), or losing concentration. The players are human ultimately, and they are also not experienced enough to manage fatigue. I think this is a major factor in the last 3 games, and Maresca has alluded to it too.

The other thing is what our attack has actually been like the last few games, where we’ve not scored many goals. Are we actually performing worse in attack, is it lack of chances or just poor finishing (which could be impacted by fatigue)?

So lets look at these Chelsea stats, from StatMuse:

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v Ipswich: 20 shots, 5 on target, 36 touches in the opposition box.

v Fulham: 12 shots, 8 on target, 2 big chances created, 20 touches in the opposition box.

v Everton: 12 shots, 5 on target, 2 big chances created, 24 touches in the opposition box.

v Brentford: 26 shots, 8 on target, 3 big chances created, 51 touches in the opposition box.

(via StatMuse.com)

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For comparison, in our comprehensive 3-0 defeat of Aston Villa, we had 17 shots, 8 on target, 0 big chances created and 26 touches in the opposition box.

When we won 3-0 against West Ham earlier in the season, we had 12 shots, 5 on target and 5 big chances created with 32 touches in the opposition box.

So attack wise, we’re not actually creating any less chances than during our winning streak when we were scoring for fun. What’s changed is the quality of the finishing.

2-3 big chances created per game is normal, the only one where we didn’t create any is the Ipswich game. We’re having about the same number of shots on target per game now as during our good run, we’ve just not been clinical enough.

Even against Ipswich, Cole Palmer hit the post, Christopher Nkunku had a shot straight at the keeper, Joao Felix should have stayed onside for his disallowed goal and Nicolas Jackson had a great chance. Their keeper also made a couple of great saves. We could easily have scored a couple of goals if we’d been clinical.

In terms of the defence, that’s been an issue all season, even when we were winning. And we’ve had a big injury in defence this month in Wesley Fofana, and two more defenders out, as I mentioned earlier. Keeping a clean sheet away against Everton deserves way more credit than it has gotten, in my view.

Overall I don’t see any real cause for concern. The underlying data is still positive.

Our finishing has been poor in the last 3 games, we’re a bit fatigued, had a few players out when we needed them, and also had some bad luck. If not for that abysmal penalty decision against Ipwsich, we might have drawn or even won that game. We were due a bad run at some point, and here it is.

What’s important now is we go to Selhurst Park, play well and get a win. We have a longer break than we’ve had for a few weeks, certainly in the last week, so hopefully we can take advantage and come back better at the weekend. If we can grind out a win against Palace we can then move forward positively and players can get a full break before our next PL game v Bournemouth.

The panic stations and scaremongering seen by some on Twitter is, to me, hyperbolic and unnecessary. The raw data shows there’s no underlying problem in terms of chance creation, the problem to me seems to be fatigue due to 7 fixtures in 30 days combined with injuries, and poor finishing.

If we keep on creating chances per game as we have been, and get our sharpness and confidence back, the odds are we’ll start scoring and winning again.

The Score