- 4 hours ago
5 games, 5 defeats, and zero goals scored. It's Chelsea's worst league run in over 100 years and the knives are out for Liam Rosenior. But is this catastrophic downturn in form actually his fault? Or is it actually the players who are letting the club down? Adam Clery examines their run, as well as their season, to find out.
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00:00Right, hello everybody, welcome to the Adam Cleary Football Channel.
00:05That's nice, isn't it? But anyway, let's have a look at the form table.
00:09Now I know you're not shocked to see Tottenham in there, but over the same run of games,
00:13which is a sizable chunk of the season, I would argue, right, Chelsea have only taken three more points.
00:21Which gives them the joint second worst record in the division currently.
00:27And even more staggering than that is not even, like, two months ago they had a 13-point gap to
00:33Brighton,
00:34whereas defeat at the Amex saw them promptly get overtaken.
00:39So what the hell is going on at Chelsea?
00:42And sub-question, is the hell the manager's fault?
00:47Or whatever that would be in English.
00:51Now you're a reminder that ACFC is proudly brought to you by our investment pals at Trading212.
00:58Hence, and I am running out of names for now, Ted DeHoy.
01:03That'll do for today, but let us start with this run of five games.
01:08No wins, no points, no goals, a proper season derailing run.
01:12And we're going to look at the numbers behind all of this in a little bit.
01:16But I just want to show you something from that Brighton game that I think might make a more interesting
01:22point.
01:23This is 17 minutes in, right?
01:25Chelsea are 1-0 down, they're not playing well, they haven't even created a single chance in the game.
01:29And Brighton start to sit off, they begin to retreat a little bit.
01:32Now Enzo Fernandes offers like half a press here, but Liam DeLapp is not closing off any of these options.
01:39So there's this huge space in the middle.
01:42And you look at that and you think, okay, fine, the game plan then is not to press.
01:47They are sitting off.
01:48Nothing wrong with that.
01:49But then, as Brighton comes short to offer a pass through the middle,
01:53Chelsea's midfield really proactively jumps up with them,
01:57trying to close down this option and stop them playing through.
02:01And as well as that, although it is harder to see because of the TV angle of the camera and
02:05stuff, right?
02:06Chelsea's defence, they join in, they push up man for man at the exact same time as the midfield.
02:12So you see that and now you're thinking, well, they are trying to press.
02:17They are trying to squeeze Brighton further up the pitch.
02:19But if you're doing that, then how come none of that pressure is on the ball?
02:24Because the thing is, right, off the ball 101, or if you are my age,
02:29the very first page of Key Stage 3 pressing GCSE revision guide says that
02:35if you do not close down the man on the ball, then your defence has to drop off.
02:41Otherwise, you'll just get hit in behind.
02:43And that is exactly what happens.
02:45Chelsea seemingly jump up as a unit, but nobody has told the two men leading the press.
02:51And Brighton just knock it over the top like it's the easiest thing in the world, which it is.
02:56And a few minutes before that as well, Chelsea have it at the back.
03:00And instead of considering a single decent option or retaining possession or trying to invite Brighton on,
03:06they just try a killer pass that is never really on, right?
03:11And Enzo Fernandes, who is the one player in the team who you think,
03:14oh, he'll be OK in this situation.
03:16He'll bring the ball under control.
03:18He'll sort of calm this all down.
03:20He'll turn.
03:20He'll play us out of this problem.
03:22And he just lazily tries to knock a ball around the corner without even looking to see if it was
03:30on,
03:31which, of course, it wasn't.
03:33So both on and off the ball.
03:35And those two things take place in the space of about two minutes, by the way.
03:39There is no evidence whatsoever of joined up patterns of play.
03:43They look like they've got no idea what it is they're supposed to be doing.
03:47And without Brighton even really pressing them that aggressively, I thought.
03:53Like, they did squeeze them a bit, but it wasn't, like, crazy levels of running or anything.
03:58Chelsea give the ball away here.
04:00They give it away here.
04:02They give it away here.
04:03And even this, Sanchez claims the ball really well.
04:07But then, like, what was the idea there?
04:11What was he trying to do in that situation?
04:13What was it his teammates were supposed to be anticipating?
04:17And I think, like, honestly, what you saw, especially in that first half against Brighton,
04:22was either a manager who had not given his players an effective game plan to go out there and make
04:29things happen,
04:30or if he had, almost an entire team full of players who were paying no attention to it whatsoever.
04:38And those two things are both really, really bad for very different reasons.
04:45And the Man United game I thought was really interesting as well,
04:47because I watched that and I did start to think, like,
04:51maybe the problem with Chelsea is Cole Palmer.
04:55But not in a way that it's, like, his fault,
04:57but that Rasenia so desperately wants to get him back to his best.
05:01He's forcing so much of the play to go through him when he's not playing well,
05:07and that's causing problems across the entire pitch.
05:10Like, this is early on, but it happens, like, loads.
05:12Chelsea have it at the back.
05:13There are options, but they sort of keep looking to see if Palmer can take the ball,
05:19and when he can't, turning away and not doing anything.
05:22And then, and I thought this was really weird at the time, right?
05:26Fernandes looks up and he sees that the pass to Palmer is finally on.
05:29But then, just before he plays it, Palmer then turns and sprints away instead of asking for it.
05:36And you can even see here, Fernandes pointing at that space.
05:40Now, I do, me, personally, think Cole Palmer should come short for that pass
05:44to try and get turned and make something happen.
05:47But dragging your marker out of the space is a perfectly viable alternative,
05:52provided one of these two comes off the touchline to fill that space,
05:58which neither of them do.
06:00Like, Chelsea make this massive big hole in Man United,
06:03and they've got no way of getting the ball into it.
06:05But this is, like, the problem he's having at the minute,
06:08because a few minutes after this, he does come short.
06:11He shows for that ball.
06:12He tries to wriggle free of his marker to get Chelsea up the pitch,
06:15but all he actually does is play a blind pass and give the ball back to Man United.
06:21So he's clearly struggling at the minute,
06:22and forcing the rest of the team to play through him is going to create problems.
06:27And it was, I thought, a really, really weird game for him.
06:30Because if you look at his heat map from that match,
06:32you'd actually get quite excited about that.
06:35Because, yes, he's getting into his favoured right half space,
06:37where he can do these wide combinations with the players out here.
06:40But look how many times they found him right on the edge of the box.
06:45That should be a goldmine for chance creation or him getting chances of his own.
06:50But I don't know if you watched that match or you remember it in any way.
06:54Nothing really came out of any of this.
06:56If you look at his pass map overlaid over the top,
06:58you can see a lot of it goes backwards or sort of sideways.
07:01There's very little penetration with it.
07:03And if we look at his shots, they are all, these three here, just blocked.
07:08They were never really on in the first place.
07:09He slammed them into a defender.
07:11And this one goes quite badly wide.
07:14It was a really weirdly ineffective performance from him
07:17in a game that was clearly set up to give him a lot of the ball.
07:23So that is a problem, I would say, entirely of Resenia's own making.
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09:21Class dismissed.
09:23But the thing is, and no doubt several of you have been sat shouting this at the screen
09:28thinking I somehow forgot, Cole Palmer does not play against Brighton.
09:33He's not in that match.
09:34Rossini even changed the entire system.
09:36He gave them a back three, sort of half thing with Kukurea.
09:40And that was as bad as they've been in this run.
09:43And I think what we instead saw in this game
09:45was the problem that Chelsea have very quietly been having all season.
09:50And that is with taking their chances.
09:53Like, they are actually top.
09:54Honest to God, top of the Premier League on XG created this season.
09:59But they're second bottom for goals versus XG,
10:03which is the incredibly nerdy way of saying
10:05they are the second worst team in the division
10:08for converting the chances they take relative to the quality of those chances.
10:14They make good stuff.
10:16They don't score a lot of goals.
10:17And yes, of course, for the non-XG crowd out there,
10:21don't worry, I will never forget about you.
10:24Dad, the actual real-life numbers paint the same picture.
10:28In terms of actual shots and actual shots on target,
10:31Chelsea are in and around the Champions League places,
10:33which is obviously very good.
10:35But when it comes to the actual league table,
10:37there is a set of results coming up with all the games in hand
10:42that could see them drop to, like, 12th.
10:4512th at the table, provided Fulham win, like, 10 or 11-0,
10:50or something like that.
10:51And that's obviously not good.
10:53But the thing is, right, if you look at the numbers
10:55purely over this run of five games,
10:57they don't scream that this team has suddenly just forgotten
11:01how to play football.
11:02Like, Chelsea have averaged about 13 or 14 chances per game this season,
11:07which is, like, compared to the rest of the teams in the league,
11:09really good.
11:10It's right at the top of the division.
11:12And they've actually gone and got way more than that
11:14in two of the games in this run.
11:16Pretty much bang on it in another two.
11:18And then there's only been one game where they've created nothing.
11:22But if you will just humour me one more time here, right,
11:25in terms of their XG per game,
11:27which is, like, the second decimal point right behind Man City,
11:31they are as close to the top of the league for XG per game
11:34as it is possible to be, that has dissolved like bread in the bath.
11:41Every single one of these games,
11:43it has been either noticeably or massively below their usual standard.
11:48And this whole thing actually averages out at 1.08 per game,
11:54which is, just to circle this right back to the very start of the video,
11:58almost the exact same number as Spurs.
12:01It's obviously not quite as bad as Spurs, but it's pretty close.
12:06And I think when you look at Chelsea over these last five games
12:09and you see players all doing different things,
12:11mistakes getting made all over the pitch,
12:14it's a very easy conclusion to draw
12:15that Resenia's style of football,
12:18what he's doing with this team,
12:19is starting to fall apart.
12:21But if you want to understand why that is,
12:24there's this last little moment from the Brighton game
12:27that I think maybe shows you.
12:31Second half, chasing the game.
12:32Pedro Neto has space to run into you
12:34and you can hear Liam Resenia screaming,
12:38take him on.
12:39Like genuinely, just listen.
12:42Pedro Neto.
12:44But what does Pedro Neto actually do?
12:46He faces his man up.
12:48He does not take him on
12:50and he winds up passing the ball back to Caicedo.
12:53So I think, overall, the game plan for Chelsea is there.
12:59It's maybe not the best one in the world.
13:01It's maybe too focused on Palmer and stuff like that,
13:03but it definitely does exist.
13:06The problem is that a lot of these players
13:08are now no longer listening to this man.
13:13And I thought the Wesley Fofana clip got blown out of proportion
13:16because you don't know what happens before or after,
13:17but there's a lot of things starting to happen at once here
13:20that paint quite a damning picture
13:22over his control of his players.
13:25And if that is indeed the case,
13:27then I will allow you to draw your own conclusions
13:31about who the baddie or the baddies might be in this situation.
13:37It certainly feels quite toxic.
13:40Let's say that.
13:41But not to worry, only an FA Cup semi-final against Leeds United coming up next.
13:46Oh, well, never dull, is it?
13:48But anyway, that is the end of the video.
13:49So thank you very much for watching, Chelsea fans.
13:51What do you think is the problem?
13:53Is it the managers?
13:53Is it the players?
13:54Is it every single mad thing above them?
13:56Please let us know down below.
13:58I would actually like to get your opinion on all that.
14:01A reminder as well that we're sponsored by Trading 212 here.
14:04The link for that is in the description below.
14:05And if you've enjoyed the lovely graphical elements
14:08and the teams and stuff like that we've had on screen during the video,
14:11that is Votmob.
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14:23You can get the link for that down below as well.
14:25And if you've sat and watched for this long,
14:28I may as well also point out I'm doing the Hackney Hearth for Calm,
14:32who are a British mental health charity.
14:35The campaign against living miserably.
14:37I'm trying to raise as much money as we can for them.
14:39It's a cause very close to my heart.
14:41And running half marathons is incredibly hard and stupid and difficult.
14:45So knowing you've raised a bit of money does make that a little bit easier.
14:49So the link for that will also be in the description as well.
14:52But until next time, 200,000 of you, eh?
14:55In like just over a year.
14:59That's, yeah, that's mad.
15:01And I'm going to go spiral a bit about that now.
15:03I'm going to go slightly mad.
15:04But thank you for watching.
15:05I'll see you next time.
15:07Goodbye.
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