Why Chelsea missed a trick by letting this £30m maestro slip away?

Luka Modric has been in brilliant form for Real Madrid this season.According to reports, Chelsea – along with Manchester United and Paris Saint-Germain – have tried to sign the Croatian before, but with a lack of a deep-lying ball playing midfielder at Stamford Bridge, have they seriously missed out by not signing the former Spurs man?

Modric versus Chelsea’s deep midfielders

	Passes per game	Pass accuracy	Long passes per game	Chances created per game
Modric	46	90%	5	1.5
Ramires	56	85%	3.6	1.3
Lampard	49	84%	2.5	1.3
Mikel	44.2	92%	4	0.4

It’s worth noting that four of Modric’s 12 appearances have been as a sub which means his average passes per game are reduced somewhat. In Europe, where he has started all four of Madrid’s games he has averaged a huge 70 passes per game at a ridiculous pass accuracy of 94%.

It becomes clear that none of Chelsea’s midfielders come close to Modric in terms of either quality or quantity of passing. In the Champions League he also out passes the three deep midfield options available to Jose Mourinho.

What we can see is that he is a top class ball playing midfielder, arguably one of the best in Europe at the moment, having now settled in to life at Real Madrid after a slow-ish start. Chelsea’s two main central midfielders do not play that many passes per game and also don’t have an accuracy that is that high, not enough to really dictate the play from deep. In fact, neither Ramires or Lampard are top class ball playing midfielders, which is evident with them sometimes squandering possession a bit too cheaply.

Domestically Chelsea have completed just 83% of their passes and 84% in Europe. Real Madrid though have had a better rate of 87%, largely down to the ability of Modric to use the ball and retain possession for his side in the middle of the pitch. Against Juventus last night we can see this first hand.

Only Andrea Pirlo, the archetypal ball playing midfielder completed more passes than Modric in this fixture. We can see though that Modric dictated the tempo by using the ball in the middle of the park. Seeing a lot of the ball he misplaced just five of his 82 passes, equating to a pass completion of 94%, phenomenal considering the high number of passes he attempted.

There is no doubt that Chelsea would have a better midfield balance if they had Luka Modric at the base of their side. The Croatian is an expert ball player and could have helped link the play between midfield and defence and would have also served as a good partner to the more mobile Ramires. Modric’s high pass accuracy and also high volume of passes played per game would make him a very important player and Chelsea are surely ruing missing out on the former Spurs star.