Chelsea’s defeat to Sunderland yesterday was a frustrating one. The Blues had the ball for so much of the game but did little with it. A look at the stats shows how ugly things were.
Chelsea weak and timid in duels – pay the price
Once again, a determined and well organised team came to Stamford Bridge and dominated us when it mattered. We scored the opening goal – but even that was against the run of play. The equaliser came through a long throw, and that summed things up.
We just didn’t compete physically with Sunderland. They won 48 duels to our 40. While things were pretty level on ground duels, it was the air that we were really dire. Enzo Maresca’s men didn’t look up for the fight against a team who were in the Championship a year ago.
That meant they not only scored from a cross (and from a long ball hoofed into the air that we didn’t deal with), it also means our crossing was totally ineffective. So often we had the ball out wide then hit the first man, overhit it, or saw it headed away.
Sunderland won 17 aerial duels to our 10. That’s not good enough. That means just 37% of the time we were winning in the air. Marc Guiu, for example, won none of his ground duels and none of his aerial duels. For a player supposedly playing as a number 9, that’s just not good enough.
In other news…
Enzo Fernandez was Chelsea’s highest rated player without a goal or assist in the game – but even he really struggled in the game, completing none of his 3 crosses.
Trevoh Chalobah was also asked to explain the defeat, and he really struggled to come up with anything, much like his manager. At least he stood up to be counted.
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