Chelsea are approaching the halfway mark in their season making now a nice time to look at their stats and work out how the season is going.
We always like to look at the non-penalty expected goals and expected assists per 90 minutes to get a sense of which our most dangerous attackers are.
Young stars top Chelsea’s most dangerous players stat
Estevao fires in.
Estevao fires in. (Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
It allows both scorers and creators to get some credit, and also accounts for minutes played. The man at the top is Marc Guiu, with an impressive 0.98 np+xAG according to FBRef. That’s coloured by his small simple size of just over 250 minutes played, and the fact those minutes have come in smaller games.
But next up is Estevao Willian, who has done it against big teams. He’s got 0.75, and after him comes Enzo Fernandez on 0.54 and Alejandro Garnacho on 0.54.
That would mean that by the stats, our most dangerous front like has Guiu flanked by Estevao and Garnacho, with Enzo in the hole. Given Joao Pedro played 90 minutes on Monday night and Liam Delap is out, it feels likely that we see that front four against Everton this weekend at some stage when JP, Cole Palmer and Pedro Neto come off.
It’s tricky to know what direction Maresca will go in after a string of games without a win, and serious changes could be on the cards.
In other news…
Enzo Maresca has big questions to answer tactically, especially over breaking down defences when teams sit deep. It’s something he hasn’t cracked in his time at Chelsea, as we discuss in the piece here.
While Maresca is getting a lot of criticism for his rotations, he’s simultaneously running some of his players into the ground. It’s a tough situation for the manager.
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Enzo Fernandez in action against Atalanta.
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Chelsea train at the Club World Cup.