“It’s about being realistic,” said Enzo Maresca in mid-December after his team had beaten Brentford at Stamford Bridge. It was Chelsea’s fifth league win in a row and they were being talked up as title contenders. No one is talking about the title now. Chelsea have only won four of their 12 matches since they beat Brentford – and two of them were at home to Shamrock Rovers and Morecambe. They have dropped to sixth in the table and will miss out on Europe entirely unless the manager can turn things around.
Their away form has fallen off a cliff. A 3-0 defeat at Brighton on Friday night – their second loss at the Amex in less than a week – means they have gone six games on the road without a win. The last time they won away was in the Conference League against Astana before Christmas. Maresca was right to play down Chelsea’s title ambitions given the lack of experience in his squad and the huge player turnover at the club, but the collapse in their form over the last few months has been worrying.
Leicester supporters will recognise the pattern. When it was going good under Maresca last season, it was going great, but they nearly derailed their title charge with a run of six defeats in 10 games towards the end of the campaign, eventually recovering to win three of their last four matchesand return to the Premier League as champions.
As such, Chelsea’s post-Christmas dip should not come as a surprise. The team were still riding the coat-tails of an impressive second half of the season under Mauricio Pochettino when Maresca arrived in the summer. It looked like they had adjusted to his demands quickly and their attacking players were expressing themselves.
Wide players are vital in Maresca’s system. Stephy Mavididi and Abdul Fatawu were important at Leicester and the same is true at Chelsea. Noni Madueke has made 25 key passes this season (passes that lead to a shot on goal), with Jadon Sancho chipping in with 23 and Pedro Neto 22. Cole Palmer, meanwhile, ranks top for key passes (66) in the league. Chelsea have taken 400 shots this season – only Liverpool, Manchester City and Bournemouth have more – but the goals just aren’t flowing.
They have scored 1.25 goals per game in the league since Christmas, a big drop from their pre-Christmas average of 2.18. This mirrors Leicester’s slump last season; they averaged 2.13 goals per game until mid-February and then dropped to 1.10 goals per game, almost costing them the Championship title.
Creating chances was not the issue for Leicester; they just could not score them. Their shot conversion rate fell from 15.2% to 7%, and a similar thing is happening to Chelsea. Palmer’s form over the last few months tells a familiar story: he has made 33 key passes and created eight clear-cut chances in his last 12 games, but none of these opportunities has been converted by teammates.
Chelsea are still having as many shots as they did before Christmas but, like Leicester, their conversion rate has dropped massively, from 13.8% to 6.8% with Nicolas Jackson the guiltiest party. He had one of the best conversion rates in the league before Christmas, scoring with 20.5% of his shots, but has not scored with any of his 19 shots since Christmas. No one has taken more shots without scoring in that time period. Having scored nine goals in his first 15 appearances this season, Jackson has now gone eight matches without a goal.
Therein lies the risk of relying on a young striker. Jackson ia a purple-patch frontman who goes through peaks before enduring goalless runs, but he has not been putting himself in the right places to score – he has generated an xG of just 2.86 in his seven league games since Christmas.
With the 23-year-old currently sidelined with a hamstring injury, Maresca has turned to Christopher Nkunku to shoulder the attacking burden, but the Frenchman is also struggling for consistency. He has scored only two goals in 21 league appearances this season, hardly the finishing you would expect for a player who cost €60m.
Maresca needs to get his forwards firing. Chelsea have underperformed their xG by 3.90 goals since Christmas; only Brentford (-4.92) are doing so by a greater margin. The strikers must take a large portion of the blame but, like Leicester, there has also been a hint of misfortune about their travails – Leicester struck the woodwork more times (22) than any other team in the Championship last season, and only Bournemouth (16) have done so more often than Chelsea (15) in the Premier League this term. Fine margins can make a big difference.
So, how can Chelsea get their season back on track and secure a place in Europe? Maresca was handed a welcome reprieve last season when Leicester beat West Brom 2-1 at home in April. Leicester made it hard work for themselves, with Jamie Vardy missing a penalty, but the narrow victory ultimately gave them the shot in the arm they needed to see out the campaign.
This young Chelsea team is short of confidence and needs a similar win to get back on track. They may struggle to correct their fortunes when they visit Aston Villa on Saturday, but forthcoming home games against relegation-threatened Southampton and Leicester could prove just the tonic.
Chelsea have spent a lot of money but it’s worth remembering that Maresca is working with one of the youngest squads in the Premier League. Uncertainty at the back has also contributed to Chelsea’s poor results – error-prone goalkeeper Robert Sánchez has only recently been dropped as first choice. The good news is that Maresca corrected the decline last season and took Leicester up as champions, an experience that will work in his favour. Once Chelsea rediscover their shooting boots, they should return to the form that had them flying high earlier in the season.
