10 minutes ago, Ukraine Bolt said:

So many games just pass him by, no amount of goals can cover up his limitations on the pitch

And it isn't as if we've been exactly blessed with goals either LOL

6 goals in 2,949 minutes, when you've been afforded the freedom of the attacking third of the pitch by the manager, and had tweaks to the whole tactical system to try and make you look good, is a piss poor return in my book.

.

On 26/05/2025 at 15:45, Ukraine Bolt said:

So many games just pass him by, no amount of goals can cover up his limitations on the pitch

Are you talking about Fernandez or Jackson?

I thought he was immense last night tbh

People hold him up to unfair expectations due to his transfer fee. If he had cost us £50-60m, people would be saying he's worth double that.

32 minutes ago, Sunspear_88 said:

People hold him up to unfair expectations due to his transfer fee. If he had cost us £50-60m, people would be saying he's worth double that.

Whether he's £50m or £110m I simply expect him to be a competent midfield partner for Caicedo, which too much of the time he isn't ... does look good against weaker opposition though, so it's not all bad !

Need a 3 man midfield. A Makalele, Essien, Lampard style.

Caicedo, Lavia, Enzo.

He was as shocking as the rest of them in the first half but really took control and looked a different player in the second.

I like Enzo, he’s got a bit of something about him.

He divides opinion, but ever present and continues to chip in with important goals and assists. Probably makes us tick more than he gets credit for, due to the price tag. And across this as well

One more stat that came from a Bruno to Saudi article - impressive numbers (we have two of the top five)

22 minutes ago, PhilH930 said:

One more stat that came from a Bruno to Saudi article - impressive numbers (we have two of the top five)

Wow... our top 2 produced 170 chances...

Goals For 64...

So 106 ... missed over 38 games ?

More or less 3 per game ...

It'll be interesting to see whether Delap can make a difference next year - I was reading today that the guy has a good footballing brain.

6 hours ago, PhilH930 said:

One more stat that came from a Bruno to Saudi article - impressive numbers (we have two of the top five)

As i always say (and said it more than once), if this team wasn't so allergic to scoring peoply would rate Enzo a lot more.

Edited June 2, 20251 yr by Upb78

8 hours ago, PhilH930 said:

One more stat that came from a Bruno to Saudi article - impressive numbers (we have two of the top five)

Damn, and we scored less than half of that!

Stats can be so misleading. I watch games and the eye test does not lie. Enzo Fernandez is not that good. Game passes him by.

6 hours ago, Bebe1980 said:

Wow... our top 2 produced 170 chances...

Goals For 64...

So 106 ... missed over 38 games ?

More or less 3 per game ...

It'll be interesting to see whether Delap can make a difference next year - I was reading today that the guy has a good footballing brain.

In terms of assists, Cole had 8 and Enzo had 7, so that's your hit rate.

The expected assists (xA) from Enzo's 79 "chances" was 6.2 and for Cole 9.1 from his "89".

Numbers from FBREF

https://fbref.com/en/squads/cff3d9bb/2024-2025/c9/Chelsea-Stats-Premier-League

10 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

In terms of assists, Cole had 8 and Enzo had 7, so that's your hit rate.

The expected assists (xA) from Enzo's 79 "chances" was 6.2 and for Cole 9.1 from his "89".

Numbers from FBREF

https://fbref.com/en/squads/cff3d9bb/2024-2025/c9/Chelsea-Stats-Premier-League

🙈

Grief... glad I'm retired.

7 hours ago, KonaKai Blue said:

Stats can be so misleading. I watch games and the eye test does not lie. Enzo Fernandez is not that good. Game passes him by.

Yep. A chance created could literally just be a 2 yard pass and somebody takes a hopeful long shot. Bruno Fernandes being top of this list proves it for me. Creatively, the guy is pretty sh*t, but United players are so greedy that they shoot all of the time, even when it's not on, so his numbers for chances created are always so high. I've seen Garnacho do it a ton of times, it's why United fans get so annoyed by him. Rashford used to do it too.

I genuinely believe that this kind of data is what is leading to so many poor signings, and not just at Chelsea.

7 hours ago, KonaKai Blue said:

Stats can be so misleading. I watch games and the eye test does not lie. Enzo Fernandez is not that good. Game passes him by.

Definitely. He's one of those unique players that only work under the right condition against a specific kind of opponents.

Enzo has been on the end of or involved in almost all our attacking play in Maresca’s set up. It isn’t surprising up in the charts.

Not sure about stats being misleading - the facts don't lie. We scored 64 goals in PL, of which he scored 7 and assisted 6, so was directly involved in 20% of our PL goal total. Perhaps that's just the best of a bad bunch, but his output exceeded all but Palmer and Jackson. But, lets do some comparisons to G+A:

• Arsenal - Rice 11, Odegaard 11, Merino 9

• Man City - KDB 11, Silva 8, Nunes 7, Gundogan 8, Foden 9

• Liverpool - MacAllister 10, Szoboszlai 13, Gravenberch 4, Jones 7

• Spurs - Maddison 16, Kulusevski 11

• Newcastle - Guimaraes 11, Tonali 6, Joelinto 7, Willock 2

• Villa - Rodgers 17, Tielemans 10, Ramsey 6, McGinn 5

• Forrest - Gibbs White 17

• Palace - Eze 16, Sarr 15

• Brentford - Damsgaard 13, Norgaard 9

Comparing to other midfielders, there are few that exceeded his output, and those that did were regarded as having a positive season. For a team that grumbles about lack of output from so many of our players, surely we should recognize one that actually has output. He is just anchored by the price tag and expectation.

Edited June 4, 20251 yr by PhilH930

1 hour ago, PhilH930 said:

Not sure about stats being misleading - the facts don't lie. We scored 64 goals in PL, of which he scored 7 and assisted 6, so was directly involved in 20% of our PL goal total. Perhaps that's just the best of a bad bunch, but his output exceeded all but Palmer and Jackson. But, lets do some comparisons to G+A:

• Arsenal - Rice 11, Odegaard 11, Merino 9

• Man City - KDB 11, Silva 8, Nunes 7, Gundogan 8, Foden 9

• Liverpool - MacAllister 10, Szoboszlai 13, Gravenberch 4, Jones 7

• Spurs - Maddison 16, Kulusevski 11

• Newcastle - Guimaraes 11, Tonali 6, Joelinto 7, Willock 2

• Villa - Rodgers 17, Tielemans 10, Ramsey 6, McGinn 5

• Forrest - Gibbs White 17

• Palace - Eze 16, Sarr 15

• Brentford - Damsgaard 13, Norgaard 9

Comparing to other midfielders, there are few that exceeded his output, and those that did were regarded as having a positive season. For a team that grumbles about lack of output from so many of our players, surely we should recognize one that actually has output. He is just anchored by the price tag and expectation.

Good points, but I still think our lot are intent on getting the band back together. With Delap, Lavia, Palmer and Gittens already in, it feels inevitable that they will have a push at getting Rogers out of a cash strapped Villa. Rogers numbers here is interesting and will no doubt have been highlighted by Joe Shields.

To do this surely they will a) have to get some sales done with not many players that will be easy to move and b) come to a decision about the long term future of Fernandez and whether he can be used as but for a real marquee signing

Edited June 4, 20251 yr by WhiteWall

4 hours ago, PhilH930 said:

Not sure about stats being misleading - the facts don't lie. We scored 64 goals in PL, of which he scored 7 and assisted 6, so was directly involved in 20% of our PL goal total. Perhaps that's just the best of a bad bunch, but his output exceeded all but Palmer and Jackson. But, lets do some comparisons to G+A:

• Arsenal - Rice 11, Odegaard 11, Merino 9

• Man City - KDB 11, Silva 8, Nunes 7, Gundogan 8, Foden 9

• Liverpool - MacAllister 10, Szoboszlai 13, Gravenberch 4, Jones 7

• Spurs - Maddison 16, Kulusevski 11

• Newcastle - Guimaraes 11, Tonali 6, Joelinto 7, Willock 2

• Villa - Rodgers 17, Tielemans 10, Ramsey 6, McGinn 5

• Forrest - Gibbs White 17

• Palace - Eze 16, Sarr 15

• Brentford - Damsgaard 13, Norgaard 9

Comparing to other midfielders, there are few that exceeded his output, and those that did were regarded as having a positive season. For a team that grumbles about lack of output from so many of our players, surely we should recognize one that actually has output. He is just anchored by the price tag and expectation.

OK, but how much did our team output decline when it all got built around Fernandez rather than Palmer ?

That's the issue for me.

That and how isolated he leaves his midfield partner Caicedo when he saunters up field (Maresca also culpable in part for this), and how irrelevant he is in many of our matches.

On 04/06/2025 at 08:31, Sexyfootball said:

OK, but how much did our team output decline when it all got built around Fernandez rather than Palmer ?

That's the issue for me.

That and how isolated he leaves his midfield partner Caicedo when he saunters up field (Maresca also culpable in part for this), and how irrelevant he is in many of our matches.

I know I’ve said it before but maybe we play with 3 midfielders and play palmer and another as 2 hybrid 10/wingers. Fernandez with santos/lavia and caicedo looks a lot sturdier and gives him freedom you also have palmer in his drifting wherever he wants to go on the right which for me is his best position anyway. Yes in theory you lose a forward but dropping one of Neto/Madueke (as things stand) to accommodate this seems like a no brainer?

10 minutes ago, carefree franco said:

I know I’ve said it before but maybe we play with 3 midfielders and play palmer and another as 2 hybrid 10/wingers. Fernandez with santos/lavia and caicedo looks a lot sturdier and gives him freedom you also have palmer in his drifting wherever he wants to go on the right which for me is his best position anyway. Yes in theory you lose a forward but dropping one of Neto/Madueke (as things stand) to accommodate this seems like a no brainer?

This is effectively how we play but what tends to happen is we have no striker (even when Jackson plays he is in weird positions) and Cucurella clogs one of the 10 positions.

1 minute ago, SydneyChelsea said:

This is effectively how we play but what tends to happen is we have no striker (even when Jackson plays he is in weird positions) and Cucurella clogs one of the 10 positions.

Yeah I do agree to an extent but having delap actually being a striker would instantly improve it. Where I don’t tend to agree is Enzo and palmer are the number 10s and then there’s 2 wingers hugging the touch line. I was saying give Enzo the chance to push on by having 2 cms alongside him but rather than 2 touchline wingers have palmer start out right with gusto or James getting forward to support him.