Team Focus: Guiltiest Culprits in Club-Wide Collapse at Chelsea

Chelsea’s collapse in the early part of this season has been remarkable, even if, in retrospect, the signs were there. Towards the end of last season their poor form, the way they rather stumbled over the line, was generally put down to fatigue, the result of Jose Mourinho’s insistence on a small squad, but perhaps now in that run of ground-out results can be seen the seeds of what has followed. Similarly, Mourinho’s grouchiness on the pre-season tour of the US looks far more significant in hindsight than it felt at the time.

For the collapse has been almost total. No player is playing to the level they were last season, even if Mourinho seems more inclined to forgive some players than others. Let’s begin with Nemanja Matic, who was left out of the Champions League defeat in Porto last week, brought on at half-time on Saturday and then taken off again after 28 minutes.

Mourinho insisted there was no attempt on his part to “humiliate” Matic but whether he meant to or not, that may have been the effect. In those 28 minutes, Matic completed 76.2% of the 17 passes he attempted, was dispossessed once, lost the ball once to a poor first touch, made two tackles, two interceptions and two fouls. While that’s not a performance that’s going to have fans roaring his name, neither is it particularly bad – although it should be said that Matic’s presence did little to check Sadio Mane, who had a brilliant game.

Matic started 35 of 38 league games last season, when he seemed a key presence as Chelsea won the league, even if he was one of those who looked exhausted by the end of the campaign. There have been whispers out of Chelsea at an unhappiness at how Mourinho has scapegoated certain players and, with that in mind, its intriguing that Matic’s stats don’t really support the notion of a player whose form has collapsed.

His pass completion rate has gone up this season, from 86.4% to 89.9%. Tackles per game have gone up from 3.6 to 3.8 and interceptions from 2.0 to 2.4. Dribbles, blocks and clearances have all gone down but that’s still not a profile of a player in collapse. In fact, by WhoScored.com rating, Matic has been the second-best Chelsea player this season – although his score has fallen from 7.40 last season to 7.16 this.

When Willian, whom Mourinho later said had been ill, and Matic were substituted in the second half, there was sporadic booing, seemingly from fans who believed Fabregas should have been the one withdrawn. His WhoScored.com rating this season is 6.96, making him Chelsea’s fourth best player. That’s down 0.66 on last season: pass completion and key passes per game are down and although shots per game are up, tackles per game have also dropped.

The biggest fall in average rating from last season is that of John Terry, down from 7.03 to 6.07. There is a feeling among some at Chelsea that last season was the remarkable one, that it was unexpected he should hold out against age for so long. This season, though, he has struggled, unable to readjust for Southampton’s second
 goal, and winning fewer than half as many aerials per game as last season. Tackles, interceptions and clearances are all down, the last of those three dramatically so. In that sense, Mourinho’s decision to replace him in certain games with Kurt Zouma seems entirely logical.

But perhaps the most worrying aspect for Mourinho is that the second biggest fall in WhoScored.com rating is in Eden Hazard, down from 7.96 to 7.19 – which still makes him Chelsea’s best player. Intriguingly, his key passes per game have gone up, but he is dribbling and shooting less and playing more long balls.

Across the board, ratings are down – Diego Costa and Branislav Ivanovic also by more than 0.65. And that’s what makes the situation so difficult. This isn’t one player underperforming. It isn’t the attack misfiring or the defence losing focus. It’s everybody, from back to front, left to right. It may suit Mourinho to let a couple of players take the bulk of the blame, but this is a club-wide collapse.

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