Xabi Alonso has a lot on his plate as he takes over at Chelsea – but an obvious priority is getting the team’s running stats up again.
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A stat that did the rounds pretty regularly last season was the very disturbing one which noted that the Blues had been outrun in every game they played in the Premier League, with the one exception of the end of season game against Liverpool.
Teams who were stronger, teams who were weaker; teams who were winning, teams who were losing; teams with ten men and teams facing ten men. They all covered more ground than Chelsea.
It was used more to point out how lacking in motivation the squad were, rather than to imply they weren’t fit enough – although the two are closely linked. It’s clearly something new manager Xabi Alonso must fix.
Alonso aims to transform Chelsea physically
The Daily Mail pointed out that Alonso has “studied” the data, and these facts will have jumped out at him. They also note that his Bayer Leverkusen team ran more than anyone but Hoffenheim in their title winning season two years ago.
After finishing dead last in total distance covered last season, it will be very interesting to see where the Blues end up in a year’s time, after 12 months of Alonso.
In other news…
The questions about what Chelsea are going to do in goal is one which hangs over this summer – Mike Penders is expected to put some serious pressure on Robert Sanchez.
Mamadou Sarr has had a bad start at Chelsea, and the club are now looking to get his development back on track with a loan to another Premier League club.
