The Pochettino review: What does the Chelsea data say?

Now the 2023-24 season is in the books it is time to reflect — or in the case of Chelsea, to review.

The Athletic detailed on Monday several of the most significant factors that will be considered by co-sporting directors Laurence Stewart and Paul
Winstanley — alongside the owners — when looking back at the campaign and, crucially, at head coach Mauricio Pochettino’s performance leading
it.

Data analysis will have a big role to play. Chelsea have access to more sophisticated metrics internally to analyse individual players, the team and
Pochettino, but even the publicly available numbers raise some interesting considerations.

What does the data say about Chelsea’s season? Let us take a closer look…

Chelsea’s season at its core was a tale of two boxes.

In attack, Pochettino oversaw a dramatic recovery from the historically paltry 38 goals scored in 38 Premier League matches under Thomas Tuchel,
Graham Potter and Frank Lampard in the 2022-23 season. This season’s tally of 77 constitutes the club’s third-best attacking campaign of the
Premier League era, beaten only by the title-winning seasons of 2009-10 (103 goals) and 2016-17 (85).

But this stark improvement was achieved at considerable cost, with Chelsea conceding more league goals this season (63) than any other in the
Premier League era.

West Ham United (73 goals conceded) are the only team to finish in the top half of the table with a worse defensive record, though the numbers
for Aston Villa, Tottenham Hotspur (both 61) and Newcastle United (62) are comparable.
Neither of these numbers is surprising in light of the underlying metrics; Pochettino has returned Chelsea’s non-penalty expected goals (xG)
average to the heights it reached in the purple patch of Tuchel’s tenure, but the average non-penalty xG conceded has hovered around the level of
Potter’s worst stretch and Lampard’s miserable caretaker stint.
Analysing how and when those goals happened also yields some interesting results.

Chelsea let in 40 of their 63 goals conceded in the second half of matches, and 18 of those (29 per cent) after the 75th minute. Until a strong finish
to the season pushed them up to the middle of the pack, Pochettino’s team were a startling 18th in the Premier League’s second-half table,
suggesting something was going very wrong with in-game management.

But the bigger picture is more nuanced.

Chelsea were also a strong second-half scoring team in 2023-24, netting 40 of their 77 goals after half-time and 18 from the 75th minute. Rather
than merely wilting and losing control, they scored and conceded more in second halves that grew considerably more open and stretched.

A remarkable 11 goals — or 14 per cent of Chelsea’s total in the Premier League — came from penalty kicks, the vast majority converted
nervelessly by Cole Palmer. Some might look at this and suggest Pochettino’s team were the beneficiaries of unsustainably favourable decision-
making from referees, but there is an established correlation that indicates good attacking teams win more penalties; Arsenal scored 10 spot kicks
in 2023-24, while champions Manchester City netted nine.
Palmer converts from the spot against Everton (Alex Pantling/Getty Images)

As can be seen from the graphic below, Chelsea ranked ninth in the Premier League for set-piece goals conceded (11) and 10th for set-piece goals
scored (12) this season. Those seem reasonable returns for a group of players who are not the biggest or the most aerially dominant in the
division, but there may be some low-hanging fruit to be gained from the incoming Bernardo Cueva from Brentford and the establishment of the
club’s new set-piece department.
What about indiscipline?

Chelsea set an unwanted Premier League record in 2023-24 by receiving 105 yellow cards in 38 games. The graphic below suggests there might
have been an element of misfortune on that front, with Chelsea getting less leeway from referees than any other team in the division.

But the fouls-committed-per-yellow-card average (4.2) is also skewed by bookings for dissent, which was a huge problem for Chelsea —
particularly Nicolas Jackson — in the early months of the campaign.

Those are the easiest to eradicate from a team’s approach, and Pochettino appeared to make progress in calming down Jackson and others as the
season progressed.
In recent weeks, Pochettino has publicly made the case that Chelsea simply paid a high price in the top-four race for their slow start to the season,
and the data appears to be on his side.

Only City, Arsenal and Liverpool have better Premier League records than Chelsea since the start of October, indicating that Champions League
football might have returned to Stamford Bridge for 2024-25 if the first seven matches of the season had gone better and Aston Villa and
Tottenham had not made such blistering starts.

Chelsea also finished the Premier League season with the fourth-best xG difference in the division (+16.4), despite their worryingly leaky defence.

A key reason Chelsea were slow out of the blocks and then struggled to maintain peak fluency was a devastating and prolonged injury crisis —
peaking with 14 first-team players unavailable for the visit of Tottenham to Stamford Bridge at the start of May — that is unprecedented in its
scale and severity in the club’s modern history.
This appears to have had a knock-on effect on Pochettino’s team selection, with the number of line-up changes spiking to between four and five
per match during the more crowded middle section of the fixture schedule, then settling in the final weeks of the season, coinciding with Chelsea’s
strong Premier League finishing run.
Pochettino has reached the end of the season without fielding his strongest theoretical starting XI due to the long-term absences of captain Reece
James and vice-captain Ben Chilwell, as well as expensive recent signings Christopher Nkunku, Wesley Fofana and Romeo Lavia.

There is never only one reason for an injury crisis. The massive turnover in Chelsea’s medical department since the Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital
takeover, changes in coaching staff and a rapid squad overhaul have contributed to an unfavourable environment for injury prevention and
recovery in the past two years.

But the fact so many of Chelsea’s injuries this season have not been impact-related, and that so many players have suffered re-injuries when
attempting to return to training or match action, suggests there are fundamental problems with the club’s approach.

What is going wrong, and how much of a role do Pochettino’s famously gruelling sessions play into it?

As detailed by The Athletic on Monday, Chelsea’s review of the season and of Pochettino’s suitability to continue leading this project will
encompass more than data. On-pitch performance relative to pre-season expectations, an assessment of whether he is improving players and his
willingness to continue working within the club’s structure will be every bit as important.

But even the numbers that are publicly available serve to underline that Chelsea’s season has been a mixed bag despite ending on a positive note,
and that answering the question of whether it is better to stick with or move on from Pochettino is far from straightforward.

(Top photo: Robin Jones – AFC Bournemouth/AFC Bournemouth via Getty Images)