Chelsea’s possession stats plunge 16% in early stages as Maresca confounds expectations | OneFootball

With the 2024-2025 season now fully underway and a fair few games in the bank, we can start to look at Chelsea’s individual stats and see how things are going under new manager Enzo Maresca.

We were promised a more studied, possession based game than under Mauricio Pochettino, who liked things to be quite direct and quick. In our games so far this season we’ve had possession stats of 48%, 60%, 62% and 66%.

That averages out at 59%.

Last season, our first four games had us at 65%, 75%, 67% and 75% an average of more than 70%.

That 11% change means we possess the ball a very significant 16% less in games.

Now of course this will be conditioned by the fixtures, and by the game state in these matches. But it’s still a colossal drop down, which is pretty interesting considering we were expecting the opposite.

It will be very curious to check back in another few months and see if the gap has been closed, or whether Enzo’s football has been rather misunderstood.

Levi Colwill learning from Enzo Maresca on the training pitch.

Individuals doing different jobs

Our top 3 passers this season are Levi Colwill, Wesley Fofana and Marc Cucurella, who have completed 75, 67 and 67 passes per 90 minutes.

Last season’s final stats had our top 3 (Thiago Silva, Benoit Badiashile and Axel Disasi) on 77, 72 and 71 passes per 90. Again, that’s a pretty decent drop-off.

Levi Colwill was playing at left back for a lot of last year, so it’s hard to do a direct comparison there. The best like for like we have is Moises Caicedo, who clocked in at 60 completed passes a game last season, and is now at 55.

None of this is good or bad (we have better results than in our first 4 games last season), it’s just an interesting confounding of the expectations that most had of Maresca as a sort of mini-Pep Guardiola. Perhaps it will take longer for his system to take hold, or perhaps he’s just adapted his style to the players he has.