Alan Shearer and the BBC panel on Chelsea’s distance covered: “Every single Premier League game,home and away, they have been outrun by the opposition. We have double, triple checked this stat. We found it really hard to believe.”
by Jc_sparky
Alan Shearer and the BBC panel on Chelsea’s distance covered: “Every single Premier League game,home and away, they have been outrun by the opposition. We have double, triple checked this stat. We found it really hard to believe.”
by Jc_sparky
33 Comments
You’d think such a young team could at least run about.
Why did this not get brought up during one of our better run of games? Why only now?
Club World Cup could be a reason but you’d of thought the youngest team in the league could handle that
It was the case last season as well, truly some peak football analysis here.
Our average age is 24. Everton’s is 29. We spent a billion pounds on “young, high potential athletes” and we are getting out-sprinted, out dueled, and out-worked by an older squad that just wanted it more. We are absolutely screwed if we still have Liam and these SD.
Being ‘outrun’ isn’t *necessarily* an issue. In fact, often it shows you’re the more dominant team in control while the other side is left chasing shadows.
It’s a bit of an antiquated view that distance covered means you’re the better side, so no surprise Shearer is confused by it here.
That said, when you’re winning it’s a sign of control. When you’re losing, it starts to look much worse. Especially if you’re hammered 3 nil.
Hmmm…do we know if there’s a correlation between distance run and positive results? How does possession impact the distance covered? I’m not sure what to make of this, but being dead last in this doesn’t seem great on the surface.
Energy is one thing the youngest team in the league should have in spades, but turns out they’re one of the worst. Shows either a lack of fitness or arrogance.
And no, just because we have more possession doesn’t mean the scale should be tipped this badly as a team in possession should be making runs or at least space for others. We hardly ever see that.
Isn’t this also a byproduct of us being obsessed with possession though, for context. Teams without the ball are forced to do more running.
Under Tuchel and importantly Poch we covered more ground than basically every other team. The stats were a stark difference but frankly the results not *so much*
We need experience, leadership and quality. Everton looked so organised comparatively, Pickford screaming at the defense to organise, and all of the players communicating amongst themselves on the fly. We lack any of that.
Running more =/= better.
Fans have such an obsession with running a lot and physicality. The ball always travels faster than the players.
cole and enzo dont run
Welp. When you sideways and backward pass all game while the other team presses the fuck out of you, preventing you from creating attacking opportunities because sideways and backwards passing doesn’t work, you end up running less/they end up running more. Not really rocket science. We need to reset this team, new ownership, new system, etc. We won’t, but we need to.
The team doesn’t look fit. Doesn’t look strong.
Got bullied by Lincoln City.
Looks even worse under Rosenior.
Anyone considered that having played in June and have a squad in and out of injuries everyone is being a bit conservative in their efforts to reduce risk of injuries.
Despite the result against us, haven’t PSG also suffered and dropped off this season?
I dunno, maybe there are some reasons.
High possession teams (Barca, PSG, City) in the modern game preserve energy fitting possession spells. The second possession is lost, players tend to flip to a high intensity press for the first few seconds, and then get back to shape if the ball isn’t won back.
We are pathetic at pressing as a unit. And we don’t press in bouts. A couple of players press while others try to maintain shape, leading to Bonnie Blue level gaping holes in our defense.
The thing is, under Maresca, the lack of pressing was intentional. He had mentioned in his initial pressers when he was asked about the Poch based team he was inheriting: maintaining a shape is vital. And he proved it, we were substantially more solid then. Levi looked great, Caicedo was the world beater we paid 100 mils for.
Under Rosenior, it just feels like not just the attack, the defense has suddenly become clueless as well. Under Poch, we didn’t have a system, but we pressed as a group of 10 elite athletes should. Right now, we look so disoriented and amateurish that it’s not befitting for a top shelf club.
I remember this was initially discussed at the beginning of the season, when Chelsea were doing relatively well and the narrative around it was “this is good, they’re coming off a ton of games and the CWC, they need less on their legs”.
If you’re winning, it’s a good idea.
[Just read the responses in this thread.](https://www.reddit.com/r/chelseafc/s/pm9jdWxp5d)
Maybe because they’ve only had 3 weeks off all season?
I pretty much see the same style of play repeated ad nauseum, and it doesn’t involve a lot of running. The most running is when we’re out of possession, strong pressing to regain possession. Once achieved, we tiddle around with a bunch of back and side-to-side passes, work it up reasonably well after 5 minutes to the final third, and then get stuck. Limited runs, with maybe one forward making a decisive run somewhere, usually not passed to, a lot of false start runs, maybe a wing run through Neto or Garnacho, but no one’s in the middle, so a pass back, repeat. It’s incredibly boring football, and we look completely inert.
BLUECO OUT🔵🔵🔵🔵🔵
This isn’t new. Last season Chelsea covered the second least amount of KM in the league and the photo is from towards the end of the Pochettino season. The squad is one of the least athletic in the league.
In the last few weeks I can think of a few instances where this has really harmed us. Fofana got a lot of stick for the first goal but it comes about because the midfield gives Garner all the time in the world. Like against Newcastle, that goal came because their RB was allowed to run through the middle and had the time to play the pass. Against Burnley, Fofana’s first yellow came about because Hannibal was allowed to carry the ball all the way to the edge of our box before Fofana was forced to be the one to engage with him and gave away a foul.
https://preview.redd.it/cbsubvy7plqg1.jpeg?width=3540&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=970e12f2fd188f7174c880eee16df1bc81b43a0f
So the boys aren’t giving it their all? Potter back in /s
Simply just down to a lack of motivation
There’s a correlation between possession and how far you run.
When you don’t have the ball you end up having to run more. It’s one of the reasons why teams keep possession.
Without looking at the possession numbers, this stat is meaningless.
Is this a big surprise considering how much of our matches have been played with 10 men
Why is that even surprising?? We play that possession based nonsense and just move the ball from left to right all game smh of course nobody is running
I remember under Lampard I think we were the #2 in km ran, just behind Leeds. Those players fought for the badge and clawed their way to 4th
I remember when we signed Timo Werner and he said we can run and run before us facing Liverpool. That time most of our players were average skill-wise but they put in so much effort. Man the current team almost makes you miss even the Timo-havertz-Mount period of Chelsea forget the hazard and drogba era. This is as worse as it can get
We’re the youngest walking about team in the league.
You can see it in the games. Our off the ball movement is horrible. It’s one of the things that leads us to stand around in the final third and pass it side to side. When we first enter the final third, you see 1 or 2 players make a run in behind but no one even tries to pass them the ball. Side to side, side to side. So everyone stops making runs. Then eventually we do something really stupid like randomly loft it into the box when no one is there.
They’re not inexperienced but they are immature. They are not the same.
No surprise, as soon as we win the ball, we slow down, knock it side to side, until we lose it again.
It’s tedious and ineffective.
This has happened with Liverpool as well. The stat Is slightly misleading as we normally have the majority of possession. We’re still shit but this stat doesn’t mean that much