Analysed: Why Chelsea are conceding so many goals

For much of this season, Mauricio Pochettino could credibly argue his Chelsea team are better by the advanced metrics than their Premier League position suggests — but there is one relatively basic number that makes for inescapably ugly reading.

With 26 league games played, Chelsea have conceded 43 goals. That is only four fewer than they shipped in the entirety of a miserable 2022-23 campaign and if Pochettino’s defence continues to be breached at this rate, they are on course to finish with the figure of 63 in their goals-against column.

That would constitute by far the club’s worst defensive performance of the Premier League era. Indeed, you need to go back to the 1990-91 season to find a leakier Chelsea top-flight back line. They conceded 69 times in that league campaign (of 38 matches), two years on from being a second-tier side, and — appropriately for this comparison — finished 11th.

Pochettino’s side cannot even claim to be the victims of unusually clinical finishing; according to Opta, their expected goals conceded figure is 40.1, meaning they have only conceded around three more times this season than the quality of the scoring chances suggests they should have.

Even accounting for a measure of scoring inflation across the board in the Premier League in recent years, it is clear Chelsea’s glaring defensive issues — a miserable cocktail of unbalanced strategy, flawed personnel, individual errors and late-game mismanagement — are the most significant obstacle to them climbing the table.

Let’s take a closer look at what is going wrong…

Chelsea’s midfield is dangerously unbalanced

The broad strokes of Pochettino’s system have remained fairly constant during his first Chelsea season: he favours a high-pressing 4-2-3-1 that becomes something more like a 4-2-4 out of possession, with Conor Gallagher, the nominal No 10, pushing up alongside the striker to harry opposing teams who attempt to build possession from the back.

Gallagher is very good at this and Chelsea under Pochettino are effective at pressing the ball; their 10.3 opponent passes per defensive action (PPDA) ranks fourth in the Premier League, behind only Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal.

But if that initial wave of pressure is beaten, it does not take long for serious problems to emerge behind it.

Gallagher pushing into the front line leaves fellow midfielders Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo — both technicians rather than explosive athletes — to cover the entire middle third of the pitch. One issue this creates is that opposing teams can lure both of them towards one side, then take Chelsea’s entire midfield out of the game with one accurate switch of play.

This is exactly how Tottenham scored their early goal when the sides met in November.

James Maddison receives the ball just behind the visitors’ first line of pressure and, with Fernandez and Caicedo stranded nearby, picks out a low crossfield pass to Pape Sarr, who has an immediate two-v-one against Levi Colwill with Dejan Kulusevski. The Swede ultimately cuts inside, and makes it 1-0 with a deflected shot:

Despite the effectiveness of their aggressive pressing, Chelsea have only scored three goals off high turnovers all season (for context, Manchester City and Spurs have a joint-league-leading seven, Arsenal six and Liverpool five, while only four clubs have two or less). An argument can be made that they are not clinical enough for the potential reward to justify the defensive risk of pressing so high.

Chelsea’s midfield balance becomes even more skewed when they have the ball.

Fernandez often joins Gallagher in the final third, increasing the team’s options to receive progressive passes but greatly enhancing the dangers of a counter-attack, since Caicedo cannot mount much resistance all alone in midfield.

Here is an example from the 4-1 away thrashing against Liverpool in January.

At the precise moment Conor Bradley moves to tackle Ben Chilwell near the touchline, Gallagher is ahead of Caicedo and Fernandez as the furthest blue shirt forward in the frame. Bradley wins the ball, leads the break and Caicedo can do nothing to stop him slipping a ball in to Diogo Jota, who bundles his way between two startlingly passive attempted tackles from Thiago Silva and Benoit Badiashile and scores:

Chilwell’s return to the defence a couple of weeks earlier after a lengthy injury lay-off also exacerbated another long-standing issue…

Silva is a problem in a back four

Pochettino’s preference for playing central defender Colwill at left-back during Chilwell’s three-month absence was motivated by two main considerations: ensuring that a relatively small Chelsea team had enough height to compete at set pieces and providing more defensive cover for Silva who, at 39 years old, can no longer be expected to survive in isolation against Premier League-level athletes.

It was a far from perfect solution because, as the Kulusevski example above illustrates, it requires Colwill to deal with fast, skilful wingers, sometimes in overload situations. But the more problematic alternative was highlighted in the demoralising 4-2 defeat at home to Wolves at the start of last month.

In this sequence, Chilwell is caught attempting to press high, Wolves advance the ball quickly and Pedro Neto moves into the space he had vacated to receive it, forcing Silva to come out to confront him. Their ensuing race to the byline is not even competitive, Axel Disasi and Malo Gusto both move to take out a potential cross and none of Chelsea’s midfielders are able to make up the ground on Matheus Cunha, who scores from a simple cutback:

Going back to that January night at Anfield, Liverpool’s third goal exploited a couple of Chelsea’s defensive issues.

Virgil van Dijk is given the time to hit a crossfield pass to Bradley that takes Fernandez and Caicedo out of the equation, while Dominik Szoboszlai surges forward to overload Silva in tandem with Luis Diaz. Bradley easily beats Badiashile and crosses, Silva is caught between two opponents and an unmarked Szoboszlai powers a header into the net:

Chelsea did not concede goals like these in their first year under Thomas Tuchel from January 2021, as he devised his 3-4-2-1 system specifically to mask the physical limitations of Silva and midfielder Jorginho. Pochettino’s system offers far less protection, while the Brazilian centre-back is also two years older and more physically limited now.

Too many errors and miscommunications

Put simply, Chelsea are too easy to score against.

When they are not making head-scratching individual mistakes (Caicedo miscontrolling in his own half at home against Nottingham Forest in September, Silva presenting the ball to Joelinton away to Newcastle in November, Badiashile teeing the ball up for Matt Doherty at Wolves in December) they too often fail to execute the defensive basics that make life harder for attacking teams.

Brentford’s first goal in last weekend’s 2-2 draw is a case in point.

As Ivan Toney runs into the right channel and loops a first-time cross to the back post, Chelsea appear to have the numbers to deal with the situation, but Gusto loses track of Sergio Reguilon. As the Spaniard brings the ball down and prepares to shoot, team-mate Mads Roerslev has continued his run and Colwill is not goal-side to challenge when the ball deflects into his path.

The result is that one simple run in a straight line yields an open shot in the six-yard box, and a goal:

The above sequence is also indicative of a broader defensive trend: Chelsea are particularly bad against back-post crosses.

Here, in the reverse fixture at home against Brentford in October, Raheem Sterling makes no effort to track Bryan Mbeumo’s run to the byline. Mathias Jensen clips the ball around Marc Cucurella, Mbeumo floats a cross to the far post and, despite Chelsea having two defenders in the vicinity, Ethan Pinnock attacks the ball with the most conviction and heads in:

Opponents almost always have a free man to aim for at the back post against Chelsea, and that weakness has ripple effects.

In the closing stages against Manchester City last month, with Chelsea winning 1-0, Bernardo Silva stands up a ball into that area, where he knows a team-mate is likely to be open. Kyle Walker arrives and as he shoots, Gallagher and Christopher Nkunku both run towards Kevin De Bruyne on the edge of the box. This leaves the nearby Rodri unmarked, and he equalises:

When it comes to communication and cohesion, Chelsea’s endless injury crisis has hardly helped Pochettino. It has certainly had a lot to do with the Argentinian fielding 13 different back-line combinations in the 26 league matches, with two different goalkeepers getting sustained runs behind them. He has also only been able to pick a conventional defence (one with a natural left-back and right-back) on seven occasions.

But this mitigation only stretches so far; Disasi, Silva and Colwill all rank in the top six in the squad for league minutes played. The other three are Caicedo, Fernandez and Gallagher, the midfield unit in front of them. Chelsea should be better organised defensively, and if they were, the individual errors would likely decrease too.

Late-game mismanagement

Chelsea have conceded 28 of their opponents’ 43 goals (65 per cent) after half-time. Of those, 14 (33 per cent) have come in later than the 76th minute; only Crystal Palace (21), Sheffield United (20) and Burnley (16) have conceded more late goals.

There is no simple pattern to the goals; rather, they tend to reflect the full range of problems detailed above. Seven of the 14 were conceded when Chelsea were already behind on the scoreboard. They have also scored seven times when in losing positions after the 76th minute, suggesting they are about as likely to allow a goal as they are to get one themselves when chasing a game late on.

Fatigue is likely a factor here, even if Pochettino typically prides himself on the physical conditioning of his teams. As well as almost entirely depriving the head coach of some players, Chelsea’s extensive injury list has also forced others to shoulder a heavier minutes-played burden than is optimal, particularly in midfield.

The youth of this squad is also highly relevant when assessing their quality of execution in high-leverage situations in the final stages of matches. Inconsistency is often baked into the experience of relying on younger players and, when you are doing that almost across the board, it has an amplifying effect.

Pochettino has unquestionably improved Chelsea in an attacking sense; they have scored 44 goals in the 26 matches, already more than last season’s paltry tally of 38. At this rate, they will end with 64 — far from extraordinary production in a Premier League context, but good enough in isolation to challenge for a top-six finish.

Much of the conversation around this team has focused on Chelsea’s need for a clinical No 9. Finding a way to elevate their attack to the elite tier would certainly help, but doing so will not yield much by way of overall improvement if opponents continue to breach Pochettino’s defence with such alarming regularity.

This team looks less balanced and more vulnerable than Frank Lampard’s fun but ultimately far too cavalier Chelsea side. That is simply not tenable if Pochettino wants to salvage anything from what remains of this season — or convince the club’s hierarchy he deserves to be head coach at Stamford Bridge again in 2024-25.

(Top photo: Bradley Collyer/PA Images via Getty Images)