Chelsea vs Barcelona: A Champions League Tale

Jump up and get excited, it's that time again! The Champions League is back and oh how everyone's missed it. Two classics, in fact the two most common games in European history. After the semis Real and Bayern will have played each other 20 times with Chelsea and Barcelona having played each other 15 times. The Clásicos of European football, you could say. 

Another day, another match against Barcelona it seems - this time, it's different - or is it? Maybe the teams aren't the same as they once used to be but Chelsea in Europe is a completely different team to Chelsea in the Premier League. After all, there is only one English team in Europe. (Had to be said at some point)


Here are the best stats of the upcoming match to get you going. Whether they're positive or negative, stay optimistic for the match.

Barcelona have never beaten Chelsea in the Champions League when Chelsea have had 11 men on the pitch.

 That just shows you how key discipline will be for the upcoming match.

In the Champions League Chelsea and Barcelona have played each other 10 times. The record is equal with both winning three and the other four being drawn.

Despite the dominance of Barcelona, we've had a good record against them. Only losing three times when we have had a man sent off. Other than that the record is quite even. Not bad...

Barcelona have not beaten Chelsea in their previous 5 matches. Four draws and one Chelsea win. Chelsea are unbeaten against Barcelona at Stamford Bridge.

Our recent form against Barcelona has been great, however you look at the teams now, and they're quite different to the ones which met face to face in 2009. 

Lionel Messi has never scored against Chelsea in his 6 appearances against them however he did provide the crucial assist for Iniesta's goal in 2009. On the other hand, Fernando Torres has 7 goals in 10 appearances vs Barcelona.

From one man who can't stop scoring to another who finds it very hard, Fernando Torres and Lionel Messi's fate seem to change when they face each other. Whether their records will continue, one only hopes. 
Now onto stats from this year's Champions League starting with the most pointless stat there is!

Barcelona have completed 3,244 more passes than Chelsea this Champions League season.

 This stat of course reminding us that Barcelona like to pass the ball a lot - and we don't.

Petr Cech (43) has had to make 34 more saves than Victor Valdes (9) in the Champions League this season.

This is my favourite stat of the lot. Just shows how little teams tend to attack Barcelona and how much teams attacks us. 

 In total, Chelsea have had 150 shots in the Champions League this season scoring 21 (2.1 per game). Barcelona have had 166 shots scoring 33 goals (3.3 per game).

Despite only having 16 shots less than Barcelona, Chelsea have scored 12 less goals. It's that man Messi who's killer instinct is something only Chelsea can dream of right now.

Chelsea have scored 16 goals at home in the Champions League, Barcelona have scored 15 away from home.

Scary, worrying, who knows?

Chelsea have scored first in every Champions League game this season, the only team to have done this. They have, however, only won 6 of the 10.

So we can gain the lead, but just not keep it. Shame. 

Chelsea have conceded 9 goals in the Champions League this season compared to Barcelona's 7. 

Chelsea have only conceded two at home, the lowest in the Champions League. Barcelona have conceded 3 goals away from home.

Tight, battle of the defences? 

Chelsea have won all 5 of their Champions League home games this season, scoring at least two in each one. 

Barcelona's top scorer is Lionel Messi with 14 goals (42%) whereas Chelsea's top scorer is Didier Drogba with 4 goals (19%).

Barcelona have had 10 different goal scorers, the same as Chelsea.

Fernando Torres and Lionel Messi have both been the highest assist makers for their teams, both with 4 assists.

Chelsea have used a total of 20 different players in the Champions League, Barcelona have used 29.

 Finally, here's a special one:

If you were to add up all the fantasy points gained by all the Chelsea players, it would add up to 555 points. Barcelona's total is 592.

To be fair that's not too bad considering Chelsea have used 9 less players than Barcelona. With the points difference being  37, had Chelsea had 9 more players, each would only need to have gained 4.1 points. Doable, I say.


Well, that was fun. No more stats, promise.

Follow me on twitter - @lauera_n

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One game every three days in the span of 34 days-That's Chelsea's schedule and why we should be happy so far

Did you know that if you stand on the ocean floor for quite some time, you can have your skull cracked open due to the pressure from the water around you?! That's how immense the pressure down there is and that's how intense the pressure is for the Chelsea players at the moment. And luckily, so far Chelsea have coped well to that pressure.

We have played 11 games in 34 days and have had better run of results than we did the whole time before this ’killer' schedule came alive. When was the last time we played so many games in such a short time? Do you know how many games are usually played in 34 days? A maximum of six maybe. Yes, just six or so. But these eleven games vs Birmingham City away, Stoke city home, Napoli home, Leicester City home, MCFC away, Spurs home, Benfica away, Aston Villa away, Benfica home, Wigan home, Fulham away have netted us 26 points from a possible 33 if you count the C.L and FA Cup wins as three points each. In other words, in the span of 34 days we have won 9, drawn 2 and lost just 1 to a Manchester City side who have the best home record this season.

It's not that bad if you give it a thought. In fact, its some brilliant run of form that was lacking before and has come at the most crucial time where we are still alive on three fronts. The boys have kept the momentum going and have played out beyond everyone's expectations even if we won some games the ugly way. Or even if we could have really won a game when needed the most. That's the game against Fulham. I am not going into that now, but rather paint you a picture on why we should be proud of the men in blue and I guess you get my point by now.

In other ways, this schedule is good for our chances of reaching the top four. That's where pressure comes in, and that's when Chelsea play their best -Under pressure. The game vs Benfica at home, would have reproduced that electrifying performance against Napoli had we been under pressure. But we weren't and you could see how the team took it lightly. The boys have a knack of delivering their best performances when truly under pressure and thats well good for the team during the season run in.

Lastly, I know the draw against Fulham really did hurt most of us, we were all gutted that we missed the bus perhaps? Well that chance was literally thrown at our front door and we didn't capitalize as usual. That's where some of the older Chelsea fans would come and say 'same old Chelsea.' Chance given and we choke. Typical. Well, you got to understand a draw at Fulham was not all that bad either. Yes, we should have won during such demanding circumstances, but Fulham deserved their point nevertheless. And also, if past records are to go by, we don't have a good record away to Fulham. So a point is good they say. Well at least they used to, I think? And keep in mind, Fulham like MCFC have had a good home record this season so far.

The reason I wrote this article was to cheer you all up as I witnessed some of the highest mood changes and some distraught and devastated fans on twitter absolutely fuming at the draw against Fulham. So, I hope the above stats and theories do the difference and cheer you all up and help you move on as Chelsea need us the most this coming Sunday and Tuesday. Keep your heads held high as we have nothing to lose now and let's go out there and win! And oh, make some noise!

KTBFFH!

Vamos Chelsea Vamos!

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Chelsea - Wigan: Did The Best Team Win?

     Ah, the age old debate of possession football. Or as many a pundit would say "the right way of playing football."
Fair to say that the game against Wigan brought up that debate in a less clear manner. Many would say that Wigan were desperately unlucky not to get anything out of the match. Even I would agree, though I think we ought to look at it a little bit closer.




Possession
Chelsea and Wigan shared equal possession. 50%-50%. Fair to say if you watched that game you might be slightly surprised that the two teams shared the possession equally. Wigan controlled plenty of the play, but like Swansea yesterday, it came to nothing. Most of the time anyway. It was all very pretty and well worked, but we all know possession doesn't win you games. Something we shall look back on in a little while...


Shots
Goals are always the statistic that counts, but I would say shots help a bit too. After all, you need them to score! Chelsea had 19 shots to Wigan's 13. Not surprising that Chelsea had more, but quite surprising at the amount that Wigan had. They came with no fear. Chelsea had 10 on target whereas Wigan had 6. That of course means it was 9-7 on the off target front. Watch the game again and you'll see that the majority of Wigan's on target strikes were from distance. That's always preferred when a team's shooting - much less likely to score than if in the box. However, take a look back at Chelsea's shots and you'll see that they were much more clear cut. To be honest, Al Habsi - as last season - had a blinder against us. Another thing to talk about in a little while...


Goals
The only stat that really matters. Chelsea 2-1 Wigan. Now let's be very clear here, the first goal should not have been given BUT Chelsea were on top and had a few shots prior to the goal. Once again we're fortunate against Wigan at the Bridge. We ought to sign up the lino on right! Then, with about 10 minutes left, Wigan inevitably score. Now, Bertrand had a great game, but he could have done better. He got dragged out of position and didn't really know what to do. Great goal. Well done Diamé. But then, as we did last week, we stepped up 2 minutes into stoppage time to score a winner. I'll be fair to the lino this time, when Torres took the shot, there were about 4 players in front of of him and he wouldn't have seen it. Probably. Cue relief


What Really Mattered?
In the end, we deserved to win. They always say the team with the most shots deserve to win and we did win. 
The little while has come. Wigan played great, had plenty of possession and were pretty on the eye. But other than that, what did they really do? Of course the clichés all come out. They were brave, fought, keep going but are people just giving them a smooth ride because decisions went against them and they're a small club. I would say so.
As Swansea did yesterday, they had possession, a lot of build up but no end product. Okay, our performance wasn't great but even then we had more shots, better chances equal possession to Wigan. As they say, big clubs get decisions but I also say, small clubs get sympathy. 
Performance wasn't pretty but it was exciting - at the end anyway. But the stats don't lie. We didn't look like we deserved it, but the stats say we did.
We like doing it the hard way. 
                                                    As always.


Follow me on twitter - @lauera_n

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2012: A Fairly Kind Year So Far

2012 has so far been quite prolific for Chelsea, wouldn’t you say? A fired manager, a new hired interim manager and a whole load of ups and downs. I think you could call that prolific.

(For better quality, click on the images) (All games are represented as points inc. cup games - 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw)

Despite all the doom and gloom going around, we’ve done pretty well this year. I guess the only reason people would say it’s been bad is because all the bad results seemed to come at the wrong time.

My complicated-looking really-quite-simple table shows that our form this year has actually been quite good. Take a look:

Click to enlarge

As I said, it looks complicated, but really is quite simple.

Let’s go through this one by one. Currently, the table is ordered by games played. It’s not so surprising that we’ve played the most games this calendar year (21) since we’re still in the Champions League and FA Cup.

The next thing to look at is the amount of games won, drawn and lost. We’ve won 12 out of 21 games which isn’t really too bad. It’s the most in the league, in fact. You’ve got to remember that we’ve played quite a lot more games than most. Not great, but okay. That is 57.14% of the games played. That’s the third best winning percentage behind Man Utd and Arsenal.

The percentage of games won it quite disappointing to be honest. Only 57.14%, the same as Newcastle. It’s especially disappointing since we've played so many games and only won quite a small percentage. Happily, it has been improving recently. It does give you an idea of why we’ve been struggling in the league though. The majority of the games that we have won have been in the Champions League and FA Cup.

Only 5 of 12 games have been won (42%) meaning only 19 out of 36 points (incl. Draws) which is 53% of the possible points. Not good enough I’m afraid. However, our runs in the cup competitions have been good. Of course they have to be good! Lose a game and you’re out. We’re still in.

But let’s look on the positive side of all this. On the table below, you can see that the non-losing percentage is 80.95%. That’s the best in the league. The team behind us is Everton on 78.5%. However, if Everton were to win there next two games (played equal games to us) they would have the same percentage as us. But what does non-losing percentage mean? That means the percentage of games not lost. Sort-of the unbeaten percentage - though of course not in a run.    

Click to enlarge

  

That’s good, especially as it means we’ve only lost around 19% of our games which is 4 games. Disappointingly though, 3 of those 4 have been in the league. Now depending on whether you’re a cup fan or not, it means that we’ve been going strong in the cups but not so much in the league. So what’s your priority? A probable question that Robbie will have to deal with when playing Tottenham then Barcelona in quick succession.

Perhaps the most disappointing of all these stats though is the amount of games drawn; 5 drawn games. That’s pretty disappointing. Looking back at those games, however, you remember the performances and that we didn’t really deserve to win. Look at Swansea, Tottenham, Wigan, Norwich and Birmingham (FA Cup). You’d expect us to win at least 3 of the 5 (Swansea very strong at home and, well, Tottenham were playing for a draw). Against Norwich we could have sneaked a win but there weren’t many clear-cut chances. Against Wigan we took off all our best players and we were lacklustre. And against Birmingham, well that was just an awful first half followed by a less awful second half.

So overall, 2012’s been good. The bad results just simply came at the wrong time and at the same time. When other teams were all picking up points, we were dropping them. And dropping them in a congested period of time. And the thing is we dropped them against opposition which (with no disrespect) shouldn’t really be too challenging.  The only time which it wasn’t “too” disappointed to lose was Man City away. Their record at home is pretty impeccable and we did well for the majority of the game. Then we just capitulated in the space of a few minutes. Proper Chelsea, that.

A good year so far but the fixtures are piling up no thanks to the extra two Champions League matches which surround a whole load of vital fixtures including an FA Cup semi final. I for one hope that we do continue to take the FA Cup seriously and play our strongest team vs Tottenham. Whether that will happen or not  - considering we play Barcelona on 72 hours later – I don’t know. Though if the players cannot get it on for two semi finals in two major competitions, I don’t know what they will. If I were a player, I wouldn’t mind. I’d want to play against the two.

Let’s hope that the rest of 2012 is just as good as it’s been so far!


Follow me on twitter - @lauera_n

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