After a troubling start to the season, Chelsea now look set to finish the 23/24 campaign in good spirits under Mauricio Pochettino. Since the turn of the year, only four clubs have picked up more points in the Premier League than the London club and in their last 10 league games only Manchester City and Arsenal have put more points on the board. Now, more than ever, it seems as though Pochettino will stay put at Stamford Bridge next season and get the time he’s craved to build a formidable team out of this squad of raw, but very talented young players.
However, while Chelsea have seemingly got their act together and now look like a team that know what they’re doing on the pitch, there is still one aspect of this side that presents a glaring problem and one that Pochettino will have to fix next season if he is to get the club back into the top four. This issue becomes apparent when we look at Chelsea’s stats for this season. So far in the 23/24 campaign, the London club have the third highest xG from open play in the division - behind only Liverpool and Manchester City and slightly above Tottenham and Arsenal.
However, when we flip that around and look at which clubs concede the most xG from open play in the Premier League this season, we find that Pochettino’s side have the eighth best record in the division. And the amount of actual goals they’ve conceded from open play this season is the seventh worst in the league. This, clearly, is the unhelpful anchor that has kept Chelsea tied to mid-table for much of the season. Pochettino’s side may be able to score goals as well as just about any team in the division, but they remain distinctly average when it comes to stopping opposition sides from creating chances against them.
At this point it may make sense to blame the goalkeeper or the ever-changing nature of Chelsea’s defence, but I’m inclined to suggest that Pochettino’s problems are actually down to the lack of a bona fide defensive midfielder in his team. Alongside the aforementioned poor defensive stats, Pochettino’s team have also conceded the joint sixth most dribbles into their own box this season and when it comes to fewest dribbles into their final third by opposing players they sit seventh in the league. In other words, there are gaps between midfield and defence and it’s holding Chelsea back.
Of course, the club do have some outstanding central midfielders in Enzo Fernandez, Moises Caicedo and Conor Gallagher and each of them has probably been labelled as a defensive midfielder at some point in the past, but each of the aforementioned trio has struggled to fit into that role for Pochettino this season.
Let’s start with the most obvious candidate for the job: Moises Caicedo. Although the Ecuadorian midfielder has looked far better in recent weeks, his stats for this season still point to a player that has struggled with the defensive aspects of his role in midfield. As we can see from the graph, which shows defensive duels and interceptions per 90 for central midfielders in the league this season, Caicedo is far from excelling at either of them.
However, what’s worth noting here is that Caicedo was never an out-and-out defensive player. When we take a look at his radar from last season (in pink) and his radar from this season (in blue), we can see that while his defensive actions have dropped from one season to the next, they were never at a particularly high level to begin with.
The Brighton star was certainly handy for making a crucial interception or tackle, but he always had another holding midfielder alongside him, such as Billy Gilmour or Pascal Groß. Now he’s being tasked with being the last line of defence in Chelsea’s midfield and it’s not really a role he should have ever been signed to do in Pochettino’s side.
Much the same can be said of Enzo Fernandez. More or less signed off the back of a fantastic campaign for Argentina in the 2022 World Cup, the midfielder shot to fame for being an all-round box-to-box star. Again, like Caicedo, Fernandez is perfectly capable of getting stuck in with a tackle or interception, but certainly isn’t a specialised defensive midfielder.
In his single season at Benfica, Fernandez ranked ninth in Roger Schmidt’s squad for interceptions and tackles and since then his average has dropped by around 24% from 3.57 per 90 to just 2.73 per 90 for Chelsea this season. Again, like Caicedo, Fernandez is an outstanding central midfielder, but he’s not a holding, defensive player capable of protecting a back line.