If Chelsea want to get their Premier League season back on an upward trajectory, one of the areas they need to improve is how they see out a game.
Chelsea’s run of two points from their last four matches has seen them drop from second in the table to fourth. The gap to Aston Villa in eighth is just four points. There is always more than one factor behind a downturn in results but Chelsea’s defensive weakness in the last 15 minutes of matches should certainly be counted as one of them.
Enzo Maresca’s side would be four points better off and level with Arsenal (second) and Nottingham Forest (third) in the league if they had not seen a 1-0 lead at home to Fulham turn into a 2-1 defeat and a 1-0 advantage over Crystal Palace end with a disappointing 1-1 draw. Both games had the same thing in common — their opponents scored the equaliser in the 82nd minute.
Chelsea’s knack for letting in late goals has been a growing trend lately. As this table demonstrates, no team has conceded more times in the last 15 minutes of matches over the last nine Premier League fixtures than them.
Late goals conceded in last 9 PL games
Suffice it to say it makes for a damning statistic and you could argue that the costly results against Fulham and Crystal Palace were coming because Chelsea had got away with conceding late on three prior occasions.
The run began in the game against Maresca’s former club Leicester City in late November. At 2-0 up, Romeo Lavia brought down Bobby De Cordova-Reid in the area and Jordan Ayew scored from the penalty spot in the 95th minute. After looking like they were coasting to a comfortable win, suddenly Chelsea had four nervous minutes of added time to navigate.
It was a similar story at Tottenham two weeks later. Chelsea were cruising 4-2 going into added time but Spurs had a handful of shots in a short period and got one back through Son Heung-min. He was remarkably left unmarked in the area as James Maddison passed from the byline following a non-descript challenge by Joao Felix. Again Chelsea found themselves in a needless position of having to hang on.
Seven days later, it was Brentford’s turn. Chelsea had a throw-in close to their opponent’s area. Yet they lost possession from the restart and all it took was a simple run and pass from Kevin Schade to put Bryan Mbeumo in the clear. The striker made it 2-1 in the 90th minute and there were another tense eight minutes to see out.
Maresca let his unhappiness known in his post-match press conference: “For me no matter how many games we win, there are things (that show) we’re not ready to compete for the title in this moment. A team who knows how to win wouldn’t concede that goal. We were in control of the game except the last 10 minutes where we concede.”
Spotting a trend is one thing, finding an explanation for it is another. After Chelsea were beaten 2-0 at Ipswich Town on December 30 — neither goal came in the last 15 minutes — Maresca did admit that his players were starting to feel fatigue due to the intense fixture list. However, that is a little difficult to accept as the major factor for the struggle to see out matches. Most of the players picked for the Premier League have not been involved in the Conference League or Carabao Cup fixtures — and Chelsea were knocked out of the latter after two games.
Maresca’s use of substitutes has come under scrutiny of late. Against Brentford and Fulham, he made the same single change of Christopher Nkunku for Nicolas Jackson with seven and 17 minutes to go respectively. At Crystal Palace, his first use of the bench was to replace Jackson with Marc Guiu a minute before Crystal Palace levelled the scores. Noni Madueke then came on for Jadon Sancho in the 86th minute.
The unwillingness to use his squad in these three fixtures, particularly if tiredness is a factor, does seem strange to say the least. Even if Maresca has doubts about some of the options available, surely it is better to use fresh legs and make changes when the momentum of a game is clearly going against you. This was particularly the case against Fulham and Crystal Palace. However, he did use four substitutes at Leicester and Tottenham after Chelsea had established a two-goal advantage and that didn’t help avoid a tense conclusion. In the defeat at Ipswich, Maresca made four changes after the team went 2-0 down in the 53rd minute and they posed less of an attacking threat.
Maresca’s side have been consistently conceding late goals (Michael Regan/Getty Images)
Maybe all this does is suggest Chelsea’s strength in depth is not as good as it needs to be. In fairness, injuries to Reece James, Wesley Fofana, Lavia and Benoit Badiashile, plus Mykahilo Mudryk’s provisional suspension for failing a doping test, have affected Maresca’s ability to rotate.
Chelsea have also just not been convincing at the back all season anyway. They have kept just four clean sheets in 20 Premier League games, which is a record that is only going to encourage opponents to attack them until the end of matches. They sit 10th in the Premier League for xGA (Expected goals to be conceded) at 27.07, which is higher than the 24 they have let in.
The team’s lack of ruthlessness in attack has to be taken into consideration too. Only Liverpool (50) have a greater number of big chances missed this season than Chelsea’s 48.
Perhaps a general drop-off between the first half and the second is part of the equation. There is an indication of this with the aggregate scoreline against opponents this season of 20-11 for the opening 45 minutes of league matches compared with the more narrow 19-13 margin for the second 45.
The graphics below on some of their latest fixtures also reflect this. It displays each team’s maximum probability of scoring during every three-minute period in a match (the lighter bars) and the difference between the teams’ scoring chances in that period (the darker bar on the side of the dominant team). The idea is to give an overview of momentum and dominance in the match.
A team’s maximum goal probability in each minute can be either possession value (essentially goal probability) or expected goals, whichever is higher. The goal probability is capped at 20 per cent (i.e., 0.20 xG). Anything higher than that is represented by the little white “+” signs at the end of the bar — each + represents up to an additional 20 per cent in goal probability. For example, a team whose best scoring opportunity was a penalty will have “+++” to represent the 0.78 xG chance.
Bearing all this in mind, look at how the game changed in the second half of the Fulham game, with Marco Silva’s team having more of a threat while Chelsea had fewer periods in attack of their own. Chelsea increased the intensity after being brought back to 1-1 but still ended up losing:
This Tottenham chart highlights the extent of the drop-off by Chelsea in the final stages of that 4-3 victory earlier in the month once they went 4-2 in front:
Brentford clearly ended the west London derby the stronger of the two sides as the large red columns suggest:
And taking the Crystal Palace fixture as the most recent example, their biggest bars of the match are in the second half of the contest too:
Allowances should be made for Maresca’s inexperience as a head coach — this is just his third post and only his second season as a manager in English football. He has also been in charge at Stamford Bridge for six months, so teething problems in getting the balance right are only to be expected.
But one year ago, there were similar concerns being raised about Maresca at Leicester after their impressive start to the Championship campaign. When asked by The Athletic ahead of the FA Cup Third Round tie against Morecambe if he has spotted any particular cause for concern as to why this is now happening at Chelsea, Maresca downplayed it as a major issue.
“I don’t think it is a case of the players switching off, absolutely,” he replied. “I think that during the season you have moments where you score at the end and you have moments where you concede at the end. You have moments where you score from set pieces and concede from set pieces. I guess that it is just a moment and hopefully, we can avoid that, and start to win games in the last minutes (ourselves) because it is a good feeling for us on the bench to celebrate.”
However, with Chelsea’s automatic qualification for the Champions League via a top-four finish under greater threat, he needs to find a solution sooner rather than later.
(Top photos: Michael Regan/Getty Images)
