What has gone wrong with Chelsea since the start of the season

Jose Mourinho is under pressure in his third season with Chelsea in his second spell

Jose Mourinho's side conceded a total of 15 goals in his first season at Stamford Bridge long ago during 2004-05. Fast forward 10 years, Chelsea have conceded 12 goals in 5 games. No team has conceded more goals. The only other team to concede more than 10 is Sunderland. Manchester City have yet to concede a goal. Chelsea’s usually robust backline has begun to show real frailties to pace and trickery while their midfield has been ghosted past like it’s not there a number of times in every match. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see Jose Mourinho ring the changes soon.

Here we look at three major reasons for Chelsea’s poor start of the season.

The current team is not suited to the high line

Branislav Ivanovic has been showing signs of age in recent years. The Serb remains a formidable right-back but his lack of pace is now starting to become really telling. Ivanovic just simply doesn’t have the pace to get back to his position quickly after bombing forward. The Serb also isn’t great on the ball, with his crosses inconsistent usually.

He made up for it last season with brilliant forays forward and big-match performances but has been found wanting this time. He seems susceptible to wingers with pace running at him and has looked mightily uncomfortable once he is turned. Ivanovic might need to adjust back to the centre-back position as his career dwindles towards its twilight.

Chelsea’s backline looks porous unlike last season’s sturdy shape

John Terry meanwhile has never been about pace. Sadio Mane exposed that to telling effect again last season when he caught Terry 1v1 in a high line and ghosted past him to score. Whenever Chelsea are lackadaisical in their pressing game, giving opponents time to pick a pass, it has led to Terry being turned and having strikers running through. Chelsea’s offside trap hasn’t worked great as well. Filipe Luis last season faced problems covering for John Terry. Maybe the skipper is holding the team back from moving to a more aggressive version of football?

Gary Cahill also has been erratic in a high line. Alongside the covering Terry, he doesn’t seem to be particularly comfortable going out aggressively and intercepting the ball. His tendency to constantly back off and attempt to block the shot has led to goals, such as Raheem Sterling’s goal in the Capital One Cup semi-final.

Finally, the injury to Oscar and poor form of Willian has led to a poor attacking midfield trident off the ball which has led to poor work off the ball. Gary Neville remarked about how Pedro is not a Willian and how Naismith and Everton exploited that by outnumbering the central midfielders.

Most of these issues were sorted last season early on by the form of Nemanja Matic and the attackers as teams preferred to sit back and survive the onslaught. Matic though has clearly been off the pace this season and had a dismal game against Everton.

Late into last season or in the big games, Mourinho preferred to shift to a more counter-attacking model as his attackers fizzled out. This led to a much more deeper defence and subsequently masked the deficiencies of his defenders, giving them a system they are comfortable with. This season however, every team has exposed the high line and created a lot of clear-cut chances.

To correct the course, Mourinho either needs to resort back to a deep defence and a counter-attacking model such as the one used late in the 2011/12 season or he has to find a way to create a midfield that can press to telling effect. The current squad might be incapable of the latter approach, which would point to a failure in the transfer market.

The lack of depth and rotation

Oscar’s return from injury could rejuvenate the Blues

Jose Mourinho’s lack of rotation last season saw a bunch of talented players like Andre Schurrle, Mohammed Salah and Filipe Luis get frustrated and leave the club. Filipe Luis’s hole has taken 3 games into the season to be filled. Chelsea started at the Etihad with Kurt Zouma as the backup fullback. Meanwhile Juan Cuadrado failed to live up to expectations and has been promptly shipped out.

Pedro is a brilliant signing who has added real depth to the attacking midfield positions but central midfield still remains lightly-staffed. Chelsea’s answer to a long-term Matic or Fabregas injury would be to use Ramires, Mikel or young Ruben Loftus-Cheek. All of them are talented players but they are nowhere near as multi-faceted and good as Matic or Fabregas.

Finally, Papy Djilobodji is not even registered for the Champions League squad. Chelsea have six defenders without him (which includes two defenders who are out-of-form) and it remains to be seen how much Jose Mourinho rates his latest recruit.

This has led to a lack of dynamic options off the bench and created a first XI of sorts which worked brilliantly last season for Chelsea. But this exact same first XI fizzled out in the end due to tiredness. There have also been claims of the first XI getting complacent. It has also led to last season’s top players clearly looking off the pace physically to the demands of Premier League football.

Ponderous attack

February seems to have come early for Fabregas

Far from the razor-sharp passing and interchanging that defined Chelsea in the first half of the season last time, the team this season have taken a really mellow approach. A lot of purposeless passing around the box and long-range shooting because of an inability of penetrate the defence has crept into the team recently (sans Pedro’s debut display).

Cesc Fabregas is unable to make up for his defensive frailties in attack while Eden Hazard’s skills are exhibited in meagre flashes in each games. Missing a penalty and the final ball on a number of occasions, Hazard was visibly angered with himself against Maccabi Tel-Aviv. Chelsea need both of their midfield stalwarts to get into their grooves before it’s too late. One potential upspark is the early season form of Oscar and Ruben Loftus-Cheek, and if it stays like it is then both could look at nailing down potential first team spots.

Diego Costa and Radamel Falcao both have shown good movement and awareness whenever they have stepped on the pitch, however both of them have been lacking the clinical finish. Costa in particular has appeared to get really agitated with himself and the team, winding up himself more than the defenders. Maybe it’s time to give Loic Remy a go?

In conclusion, the minor problems have been brewing for Chelsea for some time and have spectacularly exploded in one swoop. It is now upto the squad and the coaching staff to rally and diminish their weaknesses.

Wednesday’s win saw Jose Mourinho usher in a few fringe players into the team. However, given the standard of the opposition, it was an easy decision. The clash against Arsenal however, is not. Jose Mourinho has called himself ‘The Special One’, he has to prove that he is really is.