TorontoChelsea

it's all good. I thought about that, but it's so hard to combine the two. If you have any ideas!!! (And for some none-attacking players, measuring the positives is near impossible.)

The first split is per start, the second is per appearance. So Mata gives the ball away 14.3 times per start and 12.7 per appearance. For someone like Oscar or Lampard who have a lot of sub appearances, it makes a big difference.

Doesn't effect KDB at all. Chelsea still have Mata, Hazard, Schurle, Oscar, and Moses at attacking midfield. Marin didn't play last year when we had less depth. He wasn't going to play this year at all either.

Football statistics are mostly relatively new and still developing. I was an early proponent of sabremetrics in baseball (read or even watch Moneyball to try to understand if you want) and while it will never be the same in football because it's a team sport, there are lessons to be learned. One of the things sabremetrics did is re-frame realities. Before, people thought that the key to scoring runs was getting hits. Sabermetrics actually showed that the key to scoring runs was not making outs. The equivalence in football would be not giving up possession. Football statistics will reward the aggressive and punish the conservative. If you attempt 15 long balls a game and succeed on 5 of them, are you really helping your team? Your counting stats will say “5 successful long balls”, but that player has undoubtedly had bigger a negative impact than a positive one. We measure positive impact, so why not also measure negative impact? So, I’ve come up a statistic that combines incomplete passes with turnovers, times dispossessed, and shots minus goals gives you a total number of times when a player has conceded possession per start/appearance (for some players, it makes a big difference as they have had a lot of sub appearances . A more advanced stat would do turnovers per 90 minutes on the pitch. Premier League totals only). Chelsea totals- Torres-14.1/11 Ba-10.2/8 Mata-14.3/12.7 Hazard-13/11.9 Oscar-16.7/11.9 Lampard- 15.3/ 10.9 Ramires-10.4/8.3 Mikel-8.4/8.2 Luiz-13.3 Ivanovic-7.7 Cole- 6.9 Azpilicueta- 10.6/9.4 Luiz and Ivanovic only had one substitution appearance so just used their starts. Cole had no sub appearances. Obviously, you have to look at these stats in the context of positive stats as well. Ba had a very low negative effect on the team, but he also contributed very little positively. Mata gave the ball away a lot, but his offensive contribution was outstanding. You also have to put it in context of a player’s responsibilities. Someone who crosses the ball into the box a lot is going to get a lot of assists but they’re also going to get a lot of incomplete passes. I am not trying to show some perfect statistic that summarizes every player’s mistakes. This, for me, is a process of statistical discovery as a way of trying to understand football in a different way. I think people pay a lot of attention to the positives that players contribute, but not enough to the basic negatives. I also think this goes to the way people appreciate or not players like Mikel or Luiz. The player like Luiz who is involved in many more positive plays but also many more negative. Mikel doesn't do lot that's special, but his ability to keep possession allows others to. Or, you can look at Aziplicueta and Cole. Azpilicueta had a very good first season with us and his future is very bright indeed, but I think something like this shows how undervalued Cole is. Azpilicueta and Cole had the same rough number of passes per game (Azpi 3 more) but Aziplicueta averaged 9.6 incomplete passes per start and Cole, 4.7 (despite Cole averaging more long balls and only 0.7 fewer crosses a game). Azpilicueta had 4 assists and Cole, 1 goal and 2 assists so their offensive totals were similar as well. That means that Cole was vastly more efficient on the offensive end. Many people want all the players on the pitch to be of the high positive kind, but having players that retain possession is absolutely crucial. You need what we call in the NBA “glue players” players who move the ball and let other players be more effective. One of the reasons ManU won last year is that they were able to retain possession so effectively. They had the best passing percentage in the league and the second best possession percentage. (In fact, the big four leagues, the winners all had the best pass percentage and apart from ManU who was 0.2% behind Arsenal, they all had the best possession percentage. We were 6th in both. It’s an area I am sure we will improve in under Mourinho. Anyway, thoughts, comments, and ideas on how to improve the statistic or even suggestions for a new statistic are welcome. Click here to view the article

People are in love with potential. It's why our youth players and players on other teams that we don't watch much are almost always overrated. They haven't had a chance to make mistakes yet.(Conversely, people are always want to write-off older players. Cole and Cech are still two of the best in the world at their respective positions but a bad game or a bad mistake will always lead to a chorus of "we need to replace them".) Romeu has started 15 league games with Chelsea . He had some good games, some great games, and looked lost in others. It's possible he'll develop into a very good player, but it's possible he won't either.He needs to go on loan somewhere and get regular time because right now, he's not good enough to play regularly for a Chelsea team that wants to challenge for everything.

Selling a player, is not just us deciding to sell him, it's another team buying him. If you want to put in a buyback clause, you can, but it will severely reduce what teams will be willing to pay for him.

I know. Why does anyone care about this at all??? He wore a number in a couple of pre-season games and now he'll have a different number. So what?

They could just go with Dzeko and Aguero for one spot. They've only needed so many forwards because they were playing with 2 but a move to a traditional 4-2-3-1 with Silva behind the striker would make sense as well.

He also finished second to Juventus twice when Juventus had their titles taken away from them by cheating. So, in 8 years, in a highly competitive league he did very well. Yes, those were some very good Milan teams, but they were also some even better Juventus teams and some even better than that Inter teams, not to mention some great Roma teams. This wasn't Spain where two teams only have a chance to win. You don't stay manager of AC Milan for 500+ games as a failure. Additionally, your criticisms of him at Chelsea are absurd. He led us to maybe our best ever year with what was certainly not close to our best overall squad. And Ancelotti's Chelsea was not Mourinho's Chelsea. We spent almost no money under Ancelotti. He took a third place team from the year before added basically no players of significance (Zhirkov was our big signing) and gave us arguably our best season ever. It wasn't until January of his second season that Chelsea spent for him and then it was a useless Torres and Luiz who wasn't ready for regular Premier League football. That season, we had literally no depth and we were having to play guys like Kakuta and McEachran who STILL aren't ready for Premier League football, in a fair number of games. Our front line was a declining Drogba, Anelka, and Kalou .Lampard missed a lot of the season. We had to play our third choice RB for a lot of games due to injuries and we still came second. Hardly a bad result at all. Yeah, I didn't like everything he did managerial wise, but I never do with any manager. Those teams simply didn't have near the spending, the depth, or the talent that Mourinho had when was here.

Good luck Andre and it will be interesting to see how he slots into the side.

Iniesta and Ramires are both central midfielders. Oscar is an attacking midfielder. Their jobs are fundementally different. Oscar is in dangerous positions much more often, shoots more, and should be the guy getting the assist and scoring and he wasn't. His work rate and defensive work are both very good, but he needs to take a step up this year to be good enough to start regularly for Chelsea. Given his age and his inexperience in the Premier League going into the year, I fully expect this to happen.

Interesting! Especially, for me at least, in black culture in America. There is so much interestingsubject matter there. Did you see this documentary? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m-4qxz08So

it's possible but if the team in general and two different managers didn't see him in that role even when we had no proper central midfielders. He might be good in that role, but I just don't see him playing there.

Exactly! People keep talking about Oscar in a central role, but he didn't play one meaningful game there all last season despite our complete lack of depth. In a 4-3-3, sure, he could play central midfield, but in the 4-2-3-1 we've been playing for years, he's an attacking midfielder.

Yes, again this. He played some RW at Genk. Genk was a mid-table Belgian side when he played there. The player KDB was when he was at Genk is not nearly good enough to play regularly for Chelsea. Even when he as at Genk, he played mostly on the left (which is where he played when we faced Genk). He is not an accomplished right-sided midfielder in the least. He has shown prowess playing from a central attacking midfield position and some from the left but has barely played on the right. Maybe, he'd be good there, it's quite possible, but calling him an accomplished right winger is ridiculous.

De Bruyne played 3 games on the right last season. He's barely played on the right in his career and I don't care too much about a handful of national team performances. Like any of the players, he can play on the right, it's just not where he's used to playing and not his natural position.

It is an issue. We have five players who should be starting regularly at attacking midfielder. Mata, Hazard, Oscar, Schurrle, and KDB. Oscar is best as a #10, the rest of them are all #10s (more or less) or play on the left side. Moses is our only natural right-sided player but he's our 6th best attacking midfielder, so giving him a lot of playing time doesn't really make sense. None of this sort of thing matters against Sunderland or Palace because we are so much more talented and should beat them regardless, but against an organized side, it will matter. Someone is going be played out of position next season a fair bit.

It's not that simple. You can say "we need to shoot more" but shots do not equal goals. ManU had the most goals and averaged the 7th most shots. We had the second most goals and averaged the fifth most shots. Arsenal had the third most goals and the 6th most shots. Good teams are going to take roughly 15-18 shots a game no matter what. It's not like you had a more direct player and all of a sudden, we go from 16.5 shots to 20 shots. Schurrle won't be able to take the same number of shots he took last year. More like half of them which is probably good because he was extremely inefficient at scoring. Yes, we could be more direct and the more different ways you can attack the better, but the real thing we're missing IMO is width. The player who stretches the defense to allow the forwards some space, the player who can cross the ball into the box for our attackers to well...attack.

He wasn't really cheap. 8M I think? I can actually see a loan to a German side making the most sense. (Maybe even back to Bremen) Can't imagine anyone paying much for him but if he has a good year where he gets playing time, we could either sell him or bring him back.Right now though, with the depth we have at AM (if KDB and Schurrle are coming) there is simply no playing time for anyone. Even Moses could really struggle to see action. I think of it this way. We have around 60 games, so 180 total starts from our attacking midfielders. Mata and Hazard are going to start around 45-50 games each (They both started more than that this season) which means that's about 80-90 starts total for Schurrle, KDB, Oscar, and Moses. This is why getting someone like Hulk makes no sense to me. Hulk signing means someone like KDB or Oscar basically never playing. It actually makes no sense on another level as well in that we have 5 players who want to be the centre of the attack. (Mata, Hazard, KDB, Oscar, and Schurrle) There are only so many touches and shots to go around. Yes, Hulk can score, like Schurrle, if he takes 3+ shots a game but those shots just aren't available with Chelsea.

Welcome!

Except he didn't play a single game on the right all year. We now have our best three attacking midfielders all naturally left-sided to central players and nobody who is natural on the right. We're a better team with Schurrle for sure, but I'm not crazy about this signing. I think a lot of Schurrle's impressive numbers are based on extremely high usage. We'll see how he adapts to a lesser role.

I like this sort of thing, but if our players were actually that good, we'd have won at least a double. I'd lower everyone 10% off the bat and Oscar more than that. For me, ratings should be something like 1-3-Basically useless, Marin sort of season 4-5- Squad player, or just a poor season sort of like Mikel this year 6- Useful season, some good games, but more ones where they're invisible... like our strikers. 7- Useful player, some big games, some solid ones, but also lots of invisible ones like Lampard 8- Very good season. Excellent player, not every game but usually has an impact. 9-Fantastic season-dominant performance. (I'd have Mata and Hazard in between 8-9 somewhere) 10-One of the greatest seasons ever. Like Messi last year.

The problem with this is that if you buy someone like Cavani, you are going to start them 40-45 games a year. Whoever the second striker is will get playing time because they will still start 15-20 games and be a sub in most of the rest of the games, but the third striker will basically never play unless someone gets hurt. (Or unless we play a two-striker system). The third striker should be someone like Schurle (if we buy him) who is capable of filling in there in case of injury but having someone like Ba never play is a waste IMO. (and if Lukaku struggles Ba gets a couple of goals at some point, it could easily be Lukaku who doesn't play). Depth is important but its also important to make sure your entire squad, especially the veteran players, gets to play some. Otherwise, it can foster a really unhappy team. Yes, you could be hurt by one long-term injury, but every single team is like that. You can't have world-class backups at every position.

He's a player with a very bright future. You can't write him off so young. He was one of the better players in the Championship in his first year as a midfielder. Sure, he gets absurdly over-hyped, but it's not all or nothing.

I meant as of right now. It is impossible to make any realistic predictions until everyone is finished their moves.