Pitch Picks —— EFL Cup Edition
Newcastle United vs Chelsea
With a pair of Premier League-only, EFL Cup matches on the schedule for the quarter-finals both of the matches presented me with an opportunity to continue stacking units fading a pair of teams that the market is just overvaluing right now, the first of which is Chelsea.
The Blues have been darlings of the market for a while now, and while on some level I can understand the reason —— the xG numbers offensively indicate that this team is underperforming their points total. However, from my perspective, the underperformance we’ve seen from the Chelsea attack makes sense when you look at their personnel. Nicolas Jackson is just pretty clearly a below-average finisher in front of goal, but more importantly, the midfield that was bought for upwards of 150 Million has just not clicked the way you’d expect considering the price tag.
Chelsea’s greatest flaw so far this season has been their inability to avoid the high turnovers in build-up play, and a look back on the last meeting between these two teams should in my estimation be illustrative of what we are likely to see again today. In that match less than a month ago the Newcastle high-press destroyed the Chelsea build-up play, forcing nine high turnovers and posting a 7.1 Pass Per Defensive Action. Now that game was played in the cauldron of St. James Park, but Chelsea’s inability to play through high-level pressing sides has become a trend. Against both Arsenal and Manchester United they committed 12 high turnovers, and against Manchester City, they committed seven high turnovers. Hell, even Brighton had a PPDA of 5.6 against Chelsea recently.
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