Chelsea beat impressive Bayer Leverkusen in key stat which hints Blues could be much stronger next season | OneFootball

With the domestic football season coming to an end across Europe this weekend, it’s a fun time to look at where Chelsea rank in some of the top stats compared to every other team in the top 5 leagues.

One thing that was notable from the Blues this season was the way they created a lot – but scored less than they should. This improved through the campaign, but we remained a frustratingly wasteful attacking unit right up until the final day.

A glance at the xG charts on WhoScored showed that there were only 7 teams in Europe who created more xG than us. Our total of 80.21 is actually more than Bayer Leverkusen, who are on course for an insane unbeaten treble.

But xG measures the chances you make, not the goals you score. And only the goals you score actually affect the outcome of the game. When you rank by goals, we drop from 8th to 12th. To compare us to Leverkusen again, they’re in 3rd in goals scored.

The positives of a creative – but wasteful – team

Still, creating chances is the first stage towards being a good team, and we at least have that part down. We need a little more efficiency in front of goal and a more solid defence through the season, but we’re really not far off some top teams just going by the numbers.

Nicolas Jackson was our main striker through the campaign, and his fortunes reflected those of the team as a whole. He struggled early on, but by the end of the campaign he was looking much more comfortable, and if he can build on that next season we should be able to start much more strongly and bring our goal number up closer to our xG number.

Adding a player who regularly outperforms his xG like Christopher Nkunku to the mix could be just what we need.