Chelsea still capable of top-class performances despite defensive inconsistency

Thomas Tuchel took Chelsea from ninth in the Premier League table to fourth, and won the Champions League, after taking over as manager halfway through last season and many observers thought the Blues were likely to pose the biggest threat to champions Manchester City this term.

It is hard to call a season that has seen Chelsea claim the Uefa Super Cup, Fifa World Club Cup and, potentially, the FA Cup a disappointment but recent performances give the impression that their campaign is fizzling out against the backdrop of off-field uncertainty.

They picked up 38 points in 19 league games under Tuchel last season, second only to champions City. Just as encouragingly, they matched the Citizens on underlying numbers, outscoring opponents by 1.1 expected goals (xG) per game.

The accompanying graph shows Chelsea's rolling average both for actual goals and xG conceded over the last two seasons. It demonstrates the immediate impact of Tuchel's arrival as the Blues restricted their opponents to chances worth less than one expected goal in 84 per cent of the matches he managed last term, significantly clear of next-best City (58 per cent) during that period.

On the surface, it appeared to be a similar story at the start of this season as Chelsea took 25 points from their opening ten games to sit top of the table. They shortened to 17-10 to lift the title, behind the 13-10 Citizens, and spread-betting firms projected that they would finish on 83 points, just shy of City's projected total of 85 at that stage of the campaign.

Tuchel's men conceded just one goal from open play, along with two penalties, during their first ten games, which included seven clean sheets, although the graph indicates that that was a hefty overperformance based on the quality of chances they had allowed.

The three goals conceded came from an xG allowed of 10.5 and they outscored opponents by 0.65 xG per game, well below the levels of title contenders Liverpool and Manchester City (1.53 and 1.45 respectively).

That kind of overperformance is not sustainable so Chelsea's route to maintaining a title challenge required them to get back to the levels they had shown at the end of the previous season, having banked the points gained from their overperforming hot start.

As we know now, that didn't happen. They let in 11 goals from 7.7 xG conceded in their next ten games as variance swung the other way during an easier run of fixtures, and the 13 points dropped saw them slip off the relentless pace being set at the top of the table.

Injuries to England wing-backs Ben Chilwell and Reece James, so important in maintaining the balance at both ends of the pitch in Tuchel's system, have also been a blow.

Five straight wins before the March international break left Chelsea in no-man's land, detached from the top two but with a nine-point cushion in the race for Champions League qualification, and since that break their results have been erratic.

Chelsea league record since the March international break

Measuring the significance of motivation for teams who seemingly have little to play for at this stage of the season is practically impossible but increased individual errors and a lack of concentration have seen Chelsea ship four goals in home defeats to Brentford and Arsenal and blow a two-goal lead against Wolves last weekend.

The 4-1 loss to Brentford was just a few days before their Champions League quarter-final first leg against Real Madrid so focus may have been elsewhere – not that it did much good as they lost 3-1 to Real at Stamford Bridge as well.

Quantifying the effect of the uncertainty over the club's ownership is also very hard. Chelsea beat Norwich and Newcastle just after it was announced that Roman Abramovich's assets were being frozen by the UK government but Tuchel admitted in his press conference after last weekend's draw with Wolves that it had been a "distraction" for his players.

Speculation over the futures of centre-backs Antonio Rudiger and Andreas Christensen, whose contracts expire at the end of the season, has been another area of uncertainty.

It is an unprecedented situation and, if it has affected the atmosphere at the club, it has been more apparent in games at Stamford Bridge, where they have won only one of their last five matches in all competitions. They have collected only the eighth-most points at home in the league this term.

Chelsea have struggled to recover the consistent defensive excellence they showed last term under Tuchel and pre-season hopes that the addition of Romelu Lukaku would help bridge the gap to the top two in terms of their attacking output have not come to fruition.

If motivation has been an issue since March's international break, it certainly shouldn't be a problem in this weekend's FA Cup final against Liverpool. Chelsea's 6-0 win over Southampton last month and their performance at the Bernabeu, where they came agonisingly close to overturning a 3-1 first-leg deficit against Real, show that they can still play to a very high level.

They haven't matched the top two over the course of a full season, but drew both league games with Liverpool and gave as good as they got in the EFL Cup final, losing 11-10 on penalties after a goalless 120 minutes, so it wouldn't be an almighty shock if they pulled out a big performance at Wembley on Saturday.

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