Amidst the media focus and hype around Liverpool and Manchester City, it’s escaped many people’s notice that Chelsea may just play the highest quality football in the Premier League and that they have a deep roster.
While Manchester City have a poor defense and Liverpool basically have no elite substitutes for their midfielders or forwards, Chelsea have a strong defense and excellent substitutes in their midfield and attack.
Chelsea can win the Premier League. It’s only December. Every year pundits and journalists declare the title race over too soon, but there’s a lot of football yet to be played.
Last season anyone and everyone mocked Maurizio Sarri for starting Jorginho as a regista with N’Golo Kante as a Number 8, then Kante came out and said he liked playing as a Number 8 because he could surge forward more and attack. Jorginho was always a world-class playmaker and central midfielder, and he plays with a huge work-rate like Kante. Mateo Kovacic and Willian were also ridiculed and heckled by fans despite both of these players also being world-class midfielders and playmakers. All of this is an example of how Premier League fans like some others are merciless critics who often just parrot the sentiments of the crowd making them sheep in addition to parrots.
More important than all of this is that Chelsea play one-to-two touch football with special players who can best their defensive markers and score out of nothing. One can make a strong argument that Chelsea play the best football in the Premier League, and they aren’t weak anywhere from the goal to the attack. Chelsea play a proactive and possession brand of football where they also have the players to burst forward into space and the pass-masters to feed the ball to their attacking players. In short, Chelsea can beat their opponents in a variety of ways from the run of play.
In addition to the midfielders who were discussed above, Chelsea’s attack has something that all clubs try desperately to find: an elite Number 9. It’s not too early to call Tammy Abraham a world-class center forward. He has everything you could want in a center forward: skill, speed, two-footed technical ability, quality heading, height, and strength. Abraham is a skill player. His goals and attacking play are based on his technical ability with the ball rather than merely being a poacher. He is a penalty box predator, but he’s also a player who dribbles into the penalty box and shakes the net.
The American Christian Pulisic has been disproving many of his doubters who said that he needed time to adjust to the Premier League. It’s simply just not a credible position to contend that someone who exceled for several years in the Bundesliga with Borussia Dortmund needed any adjustment to England. As with most football opinions, this opinion was something that was just parroted by anyone and everyone who never bothered to give it much thought. Pulisic’s combination of skill and electric speed has not only resulted in six goals, but it’s also resulted in his teammates being more open when defenders swarmed to Pulisic when he made his trademark marauding dribbling runs.
Chelsea have the luxury of having Mason Mount who is a playmaker with excellent 1v1 dribbling abilities like Pulisic. The American looks faster, but Mount still has excellent pace and two-footed dribbling, passing, and shooting ability. The two players compliment each other rather than being mutually exclusive, and as the saying goes, “The more the merrier.”
Perhaps slipping under the radar with Chelsea is that their defenders are outstanding. Not only are they technical with good defending, but Kurt Zouma and Fikayo Tomori are very hard to beat for pace. This writer contends that those two center backs could play for any club in the world, and Chelsea’s fullbacks are dangerous going forward. Right Back Reece James plays like Maicon in his prime, and the only thing missing is the outside of the foot flamethrowers that Maicon used to bomb on goal from outside of the box. James basically just started playing for Chelsea, so we’ll see how much he looks to shoot. On the left Chelsea have Emerson Palmieri who is a Brazilian who plays for Italy, and so Chelsea very much have a complete team who play more along the lines of Real Madrid or Barcelona than they do like Manchester United, Liverpool, or Manchester City.
Many observers have declared the title race over, but it’s only December. Over half of the season remains. Chelsea could make it interesting with a roster that is second to none in the Premier League.