No tackles, no crosses: Is Chelsea’s Mr. Reliable to blame for defensive crisis?

Branislav Ivanovic is a player of great importance at Chelsea. Last season under Rafa Benitez the bullish Serbia international made 34 appearance operating from either full-back or as a central defender. He concluded the campaign sitting fifth in the Blues squad in terms of Squawka Performance Score and he has continued in a similar form this season despite being pushed out to the right to accommodate for the return of John Terry. He has played every minute of every game so far for Chelsea this season in the Premier League but the demanding nature of the English topflight is seemingly taking its toll.

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Football over the festive period is notoriously gritty and the games come at an increased rate, and while it provides a chance for clubs to pick up points it also threatens to disrupt form and strip squads of their players through injury.

Jose Mourinho’s home record still stands tall at Stamford Bridge as this season has seen them win six and draw one of their seven home ties. It’s their shaky away form that has caused Roman Abramovich sweat as they had already lost to Everton and Newcastle before going into their two away games last week.

Although the west London club will have expected two tough battles from their trips to Sunderland and Stoke respectively, but they couldn’t have expected to concede six goals across the 180 minutes, and unfortunately for Ivanovic, he was part of the downfall.

His -14 performance score against Sunderland was followed by a 10 against Stoke, but it was the latter that the Londoners returned home without a share of the spoils. Ivanovic did make five clearances against Mark Hughes’ men but he was caught out of position on a number of occasions. The fact that the complete defensive unit was a shambles didn’t help though as he spent much of the game drifting inside to help out John Terry and Gary Cahill.

Ivanovic isn’t the quickest player and so relies on his power to get the better of opponents, but it can backfire when he pushes up the pitch and is asked to get back. It’s where his main attributes sit within his arsenal he is not making the most of, though.

He seems less attentive than we’re used to and his decision making looks to be less decisive. He mistimed a header against Stoke which then bounced and was rolled in by Peter Crouch to give the Potters an equaliser, and he was roasted for the winner.

As the ball was rolled out wide to on-loan Oussama Assaidi, Ivanovic tightened to him and looked to force him wide of where he wanted to be. However, with a simple drop of the shoulder the Moroccan cut inside and fizzed the ball past Petr Cech before Ivanovic could even turn round.

The sloppy defending was in-tune with his sluggish attacking during the game. Ivanovic is capable of steaming forward down the flank and whipping balls into the box, but he failed to find a Chelsea player from his four crosses on Saturday.