Chelsea finished the 2018/2019 campaign in 3rd position, and secure Champions League football for next year. Our season hasn’t finished yet, with us still to play a Europa League final, but let’s look back at the key stats of our Premier League season. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
15 Assists for Eden Hazard
Let’s start off with arguably the best piece of statistical data for Chelsea this season. We didn’t score most goals, or keep the most clean sheets, but our (for now, anyway), superstar Eden Hazard was the most creative player in the Premier League.
Surrounded by some average players, he still managed to conjure up 15 assists, one ahead of 2nd place Ryan Fraser of Bournemouth. Liverpool and Manchester City may have dominated all the stats and records this season, but Eden Hazard wasn’t letting them take this one.
What are we going to do next season when he inevitably leaves us!?
Staying with Hazard… (but he’s not staying with us)
It’s also worth mentioning that Eden Hazard was our top goal scorer too, and contributed to 31 goals all season. The only other players to contribute that many goals in our history is Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba.
88% Pass Accuracy
Mauricio Sarri’s football philosophy is to keep the ball for as long as possible and not look overly dangerous with it for the entire 90 minutes. Okay, well, let’s give him some credit, as our tippy-tappy football could be the foundation for us to build on, and become more expansive next season, knowing we have players who are focused on dominating the match with more possession and completing many successful passes. Our pass accuracy was 88%, and only Manchester City had a better one (89%).
63 Goals – Lowest in Top Six
That’s just 1.66 goals per match. Looking at the last five seasons for Chelsea, we don’t have a large tally of goals unlike our top 5 rivals. Last season we only got 62, and we got only 59 four seasons ago. Our title winning campaign in 2016/2017 saw us score 85 goals, but we haven’t come anywhere close since, or even before.
What’s the issue? Well, we haven’t really had a prolific striker for quite some time. Samuel Eto’o, an ageing Drogba, Alvaro Morata, Olivier Giroud and Gonzalo Higuain haven’t just cut it for us, and we’ve been reliant on Hazard.
Wood you Believe it?
Chelsea managed to hit the woodwork 21 times all season. A fantastic record to have!? Levelling with Manchester City who also had 21, and surpassing all the other 18 clubs in the Premier League. Gonzalo Higuain contributed in his first game for the club.
3,118 Passes for…?
Yes, you guessed it. Jorginho. He manages to out-pass all players in the Premier League with that figure over 3,000. How many assists? That doesn’t matter. He assists the assister on so many occasions, right? But yeah, if you want to know the number, it is of course 0. David Luiz and Antonio Rudiger are 2nd and 3rd in our list.
0 – Defeats in Europe
Let’s finish on a high. We are in a European final, and we should be delighted that we are the only team to not lose a match in a European competition all season. Every other side has tasted defeat in Europe, but we haven’t lost a match since we lost to Barcelona in the Champions League last March. Can we go another game undefeated and lift some silverware?
Thanks for reading.
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