Chelsea’s loss to Brentford on Saturday was a really painful one.
Not only was the context bad, the actual efforts on the pitch were poor too. As we’ve seen so often, Mauricio Pochettino’s team started well and put a lot of pressure on their opposition in the early stages, then ran out of steam.
What was particularly bad in this game was the defending too. We conceded 2.2 expected goals, our biggest number of the season, against a Brentford team who have had a poor season, all told. Just imagine if they’d had Ivan Toney in the team.
The Blues had 69% of the possession, their third highest total this season, following our games against West Ham and Nottingham Forest – both also defeats. It tell you the story of these matches – once our opposition are ahead, they leave the ball to us, and we can do nothing with it.
Those are the kinds of games where you need a real predator in the box – and we don’t have one.
