Did Chelsea simply stop running for Liam Rosenior? Truth behind the alarming stat | Football

The numbers behind Chelsea’s woeful capitulation make for some very grim reading. Against Brighton this week, they suffered their fifth Premier League defeat in a row without scoring a goal, confirming their worst run since 1912 – the same year the Titanic set sail.

The only other team to go five games without a win this season is Wolves who have been doomed since before Christmas. It has cost Liam Rosenior his job, relieved of his duties after just 106 days at the helm.

The Blues were comfortably outrun by Brighton midweek with the Seagulls managing 101.2km to Chelsea’s 94km. It was among the many things that sparked an irate reaction from Rosenior in the aftermath, insisting only three of his players ‘gave everything’ on a bleak night at the AMEX.

With Rosenior’s authority weakening over the last few weeks it has raised the familiar possibility of players’ downing tools, reluctant to put in the hard yards for a man they no longer have faith in.

But those running stats predate Rosenior’s reign. They have been a theme all season. Chelsea have been outrun in all 34 Premier League fixtures this term. In October and November when there were still whispers of a title challenge in west London, they were still coming up short in distance covered, outrun by Liverpool in their 2-1 victory over the Reds and in the thrilling 1-1 draw with Arsenal, both at Stamford Bridge.

Manchester City and Arsenal occupy first and third for total distance covered this season which would suggest teams that run more than their opponents have more success. But it is not an exact science. Leeds United, flirting with relegation until only recently, are second in that table. Stacked running stats do not automatically ensure better performances and better results.

‘It is an easy stat to look at when things aren’t going well,’ said Steven Smith, CEO and founder of Kitman Labs which specialises in injury welfare and performance analytics.

‘But you have to take into context what has been happening elsewhere in the season. It is easy to get carried away with numbers that can be misleading. I would never look at running distance and suggest that is the reason why a team wins or loses. You need to look at the whole picture over the entirety of a season.’

Chelsea’s set-up not built for outrunning opposition?

Not every team will be set up to outrun the opposition. Rosenior’s predecessor Enzo Maresca stressed a year ago his squad was not equipped to handle transitional games were more miles will be clocked up.

‘When you attack quick, the opposition attack quick and it becomes a transition game,’ Maresca said last May. ‘And we are not good enough for transition games. If you see our worst moment of the season, or games where we struggle, they are all games where the game became transition.’

Things clearly turned bleak in Rosenior’s final weeks and Chelsea fans may draw their own conclusions over who has really been putting a shift in and who isn’t. But this has been a season-long trend for the them. If it was a concern for the club now, why wasn’t it when things were going well?

‘It simply might not be a goal of Chelsea’s to outrun every team,’ Smith said. ‘It might not just be style they are trying to play. That may change with a new manager. But distance covered is not the same as intensity.

‘Yes of course, looking at the distance number can show they are being beaten in that regard, but winning that might not be the plan. Given it’s been the case all season, maybe it is a situation where it has not been looked at internally as a negative thing. They haven’t been losing every game. The last few months have not been the standard they want from a results perspective but we haven’t seen a  drastic change in that period in terms of physical output.’

So what is happening in training, then?

If running distance per game isn’t the target for Chelsea’s team of analysts and coaching staff, then what is being pursed in training?

‘There might be players on the field that they want covering distance and getting up and down the field and others they don’t,’ Smith continued. ‘But teams will also be counting things like the number of accelerations and decelerations, the number of high speed running meters a player or team might have. Or the number of entries above a certain speed threshold.

‘They might be measuring those as key performance indicators rather than distance covered. You could have someone covering 15km a game and not get a meaningful touch on the ball and have someone running really fast in shorter bursts in a game be involved in the decisive moments. They are two completely different things and can have completely different outcomes on a game. It is not a fitness competition.’

Indeed, while Chelsea trailed Manchester United in total distance covered in their recent defeat at Stamford Bridge, they finished the match with a greater sprint percentage than Michael Carrick’s side.

Whatever metric you use, Chelsea’s performances have been below an acceptable level for too long. Another change in the dugout flings them into the unknown once again.

While only Chelsea’s staff with know what specific thresholds and targets have and haven’t been met in recent weeks, the numbers on this occasion might not tell the full story.  

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