Chelsea opened its UEFA Europa Conference League campaign with an expected win, but it was not as comfortable as it should have been. There were some good performances, and some not so great ones, but three points on Matchday was the bare minimum.
Chelsea took the confidence from the 4-2 Brighton win, and for the second consecutive game, the Blues have scored four while conceding two. The game was comfortable, even though Gent came forward and found some joy a few times in the first half, Chelsea never really looked like losing. Here are the good, bad, and ugly aspects of the first Conference League win.
The Good: Shot creation and finishing
Chelsea created a high volume of shots against the Belgian side, taking 20 in total. The Blues also created five clear-cut chances, indicating that Enzo Maresca’s men did not have any issue getting through Gent’s defense, which was expected. The home side took nine shots in the first half and had already scored by then, but took even more shots in the second half.
This is Chelsea’s joint-highest shot tally in all competitions this season, also taking 20 against Barrow. It is slightly worrying that these 20-shot games only came against a Belgian side and a League Two side.
The Bad: Shooting and big chance conversion
Chelsea has seemingly scored a lot of goals in the past few weeks, but it has not been through effective conversion of big chances. Even before Gent, this was a concern, as Maresca’s men created 8 big chances against Barrow a week ago, converting just three and missing five.
Against Brighton, Chelsea created seven big chances but finished only two, again missing five. The high goal tally only just shows how easy these games were, that the Blues could afford to miss so many clear-cut opportunities in one game and still score as much as they did.
Maresca’s men have now missed 55% of their big chances in the league, though to their credit, they’ve created so much that they’re still leading the league in goals scored.
Against Gent, Chelsea was again horrendous in converting big chances, creating five but only scoring two. The issue with this poor big chance conversion is that the Blues won’t create five big chances every game, and at some point will stop coming up against goalkeepers who are contributing negatively to their teams, at which point big chance conversion will become a factor.
Chelsea’s shooting against the Belgian side was also poor, though this ties to the big chance conversion. Chelsea gathered 2.3 xG, but a look at expected goals based on shots on target (xGOT), drops that to 0.89. This is because, from 20 shots, the West London side only managed five shots on target. So the Blues were expected to score 0.97 goals based on the 5 shots on target they took, scoring a goal from 0.03, 0.07, 0.19, and 0.35 xGOT.
Those numbers suggest that Gent’s keeper was more responsible for Chelsea’s goals than the Blues’ players were. This is not to say the Blues did not deserve to score as much as they did but to highlight that while they did well to get into the right shooting positions, the shots they took were poor.
The Ugly: Defending
Chelsea was never under any sustained pressure, so to leave that game without a clean sheet is irritating, but to concede not one but two goals to the third-placed team in the Belgian Pro League is unacceptable.
For all of the Blues’ dominance, they allowed Gent too much space when it mattered most. The first goal was just poor defending, but the second goal was disgraceful, as too many Gent runners were not picked up. Chelsea should have left the game with a clean sheet considering how comfortable the game was, but defending has continued to be an issue for Enzo Maresca’s side.
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