When my uncle, Dr Clifford Grossmark, was chairman of Gillingham (1961-1983), he remortgaged his house so that Gillingham could buy a player. With the Russian oligarchs running a number of football clubs around the world, times have certainly changed for a lucky few. But is this good for football in the long run?
Chelsea look unlikely to qualify from the group stage of the Champions League and will be the first team go out so early the year after lifting the trophy since Steaua Bucharest in 1986-1987. But did Di Matteo deserve to be sacked? Mr Abramovich’s main interest is the Champions League but below is a table showing the raw data for Chelsea this season and the corresponding games lasts season. I have left out the Reading game this season as no comparison can be made with the newly promoted side.
Looking at the raw data, Chelsea have 152 Shots in the games sampled this season and 192 last season. We can conclude, then, that Chelsea have been far more effective this campaign, with 152 shots and 20 goals vs 192 shots and just 11 goals last season in the sample. In terms of SoT (shots on target) Chelsea, excluding the Reading game, have had 60 SoT and have scored 20 goals. This gives them a goal to SoT ratio of 20/60=0.33. Last season they had 48 SoT and 11 goals, meaning  a very poor ration of 11/48, 0.22
[table id=116 /]
We can clearly see that Chelsea are a very good side playing a 4-2-3-1. Whoever takes over for the game at home to Man City has a few decisions to make in terms of who lines up in front of Cech. I am certain one player not appearing on the pitch from the start will be Fernando Torres, who looks ineffective, and it likely to be moving to pastures new.
At the back Chelsea have lost Ashley Cole and John Terry to injury in recent weeks. If we look at the defense we see that they have conceded 44 SoT and 145 TSH (Shots including blocked shots) and allowed 11 goals. Last season in the sample they conceded 13 goals and 50 SoT, with 143 TSH. In this respect, then, Chelsea display very similar data for the two seasons when looking at this sample of corresponding games.
[table id=115 /]
At West Brom – Chelsea dominated but were too slow to recycle possession, with too many negative passes. Torres was isolated and did not muster a single shot on goal. Reading the articles on the game it sounds like West Brom sat back and used the counter-attack, while Chelsea were unable to get behind the defense, turning it into a narrow game for Chelsea, who played into the hands of West Brom.
[table id=112 /]
As you can see, Chelsea have won five and drawn two when scoring first this season in the sample, and if we add the Reading game then we have a very respectable 75% win ratio this season when scoring first. Chelsea have conceded first this season three times and lost 66% of the games.
[table id=114 /]
We’ll leave you with a quick look at the Chelsea scorers this season and their goals to shots on target ration:
[table id=117 /]
All of the stats from this article have been taken from the Opta Stats Centre at EPLIndex.com – Subscribe Now (Includes author privileges!) Check out our new Top Stats feature on the Stats Centre which allows you to compare all players in the league & read about new additions to the stats centre.