West Brom almost smash and grab Mourinho's Chelsea record

Jose Mourinho’s unbeaten record in the Premier League at Stamford Bridge survived by the skin of its teeth this afternoon, as Eden Hazard’s injury time penalty helped Chelsea to a 2-2 draw with West Brom. Chelsea looked good value for their lead when Samuel Eto’o put them in front on the stroke of half time, but were stunned by two Baggies goals in eight minutes before Ramires was controversially felled for the late penalty.

Key Stats:

West Brom led for a bigger proportion of the game than their hosts, despite seeing little of the ball. Chelsea had 61% of the ball over the course of the game, but failed to make it count. West Brom were eclipsed in every area of the stats, but were seconds away from victory. West Brom’s two goals came from only three shots on target, as Boaz Myhill and Petr Cech had contrasting afternoons in goal.

Performance Score

Chelsea’s monopoly of the ball means that they led the Squawka performance score for the entire game. Prior to West Brom’s opening goal, which came out of the blue from a set piece, Chelsea had seemed in control and were knocking on the door for a second. However West Brom showed the importance of taking their chances as they turned the game around with 60th and 68th minute goals. From the 60th to 70thminutes the performance scores converged, before Chelsea pushed forward for their equalising goal.

Man of the Match

Hazard made 91% of his passes, including two key passes, and attempted a number of attacking actions. He attempted four take ons and four crosses, although only succeeded in one of each. His goal was one of four attempts on goal from the Belgian winger.

Key Observations:

West Brom headed to Stamford Bridge with a game plan to defend deep and frustrate Chelsea, and very nearly secured all three points from doing so. Whilst the stats show a deficiency of possession for the away team, they probably overstate Chelsea’s dominance. West Brom were willing to let Chelsea have the ball around the halfway line, but defended their own box doggedly.

This is shown by the action areas map below, which shows that Chelsea had a lot of the ball in front of the West Brom back four, but not as much in the final third. West Brom’s job of sitting as a narrow bank of four on the edge of their own box was made far easier by Chelsea’s lack of width, as Mourinho’s men played into West Brom’s hands by playing narrowly into the footballing equivalent of a brick wall.

Defending deep, the Baggies made over double the number of clearances that Chelsea did. These clearances were also more concentrated around their own box, as shown on the map below.

This deep line meant that whilst West Brom didn’t have much of the ball, they were relatively comfortable defensively for a team that only had 39% possession. Clarke’s side only conceded from a defender switching off, and a disputable penalty, as he almost succeeded in beating his old side. Chelsea’s key passes are shown on the graphic below, and are noticeable for coming from deep areas. The ten key passes include a number of long balls from Branislav Ivanovic and Gary Cahill, as any threat near the penalty area was quickly snuffed out.

Chelsea struggled to break West Brom down, despite the creative trio of Willian, Hazard and Oscar. They only made five successful take ons over the course of the game, and only one of these was in or around the West Brom box.