Why Chelsea will miss Gary Cahill vs Manchester City

Gary Cahill

Gary Cahill looks set to miss this weekend’s crucial FA Cup fifth round tie with Manchester City after sustaining a calf injury in the midweek draw with West Bromwich Albion.

The man himself did not sound too optimistic about his chances after the game, telling the press:

“Once I got the knock, I was struggling from then on. It happened when a West Brom player went for a header and I was on the floor. He landed just inside my knee/calf. It is sore and we’ll see what it’s like today.”

This will be a huge blow the Blues as he, along with centre-back partner John Terry,has made up part of the best defence in the Premier League conceding just 21 goals in 26 games. This strong and solid backline has helped Jose Mourinho’s men top the top of the division.

In the 19 games Cahill has played in for Chelsea in the Premier League they have kept 10 clean sheets which is over half the games he has played in and they have conceded just 13 goals in those 19 matches. In the Champions League he played four times in the group stage keeping a clean sheet twice, both times against Bundesliga outfit Schalke.

His Squawka Performance Score of 620 makes him Chelsea’s second best defender this season, behind only Terry, and firmly in the top ten Premier League defenders, coming in at ninth, between Swansea City’s Chico and Southampton’s Dejan Lovren.

Cahill has also been excellent at winning duels this season with 68% won overall, better than any other defender at Chelsea. He has won 71% of the 99 headed duels contested, 8% better than Terry and 1% better than Branislav Ivanovic. He has also won 57% of the tackles he has challenged for. He has only made 16 interceptions but has not made a single mistake that has led to a goal.

Defensive ability alone is not enough when playing for a club like Chelsea, every player needs to be comfortable on the ball and provide a viable option or outlet for possession, with an 88% pass success rate Cahill is certainly that. In fact supposedly more creative players or players you would consider better passers of the ball, like Willian, Eden Hazard and Frank Lampard all complete fewer passes than the former Bolton centre-back.

This season he has a better Performance Score and is playing better than both Nemanja Vidic and Vincent Kompany therefore indicating just how excellent he has been this term.

Cahill vs other top Performance Scorers

Cahill’s partnership with Terry has helped to fuel that talk that the former England skipper should be recalled by Roy Hodgson for this summer’s World Cup in Brazil such is the quality and efficiency of the partnership between the two.

Chelsea beat Manchester City at the Etihad a short time ago with those two at centre back. While undoubtedly they have excellent cover and could rejig their team to accommodate an absence if Gary Cahill is missing the game could have a different winner to what we saw in the last encounter between the two sides.