No matter how good your attack is, the Blues will not make the top four with such a poor defensive record, and manager Frank Lampard is likely hoping that the return of Antonio Rudiger will make a big difference.
The German international has been out since April after undergoing knee surgery but he has been slowly returning to match fitness over the past few weeks. The defender was a key player for Maurizio Sarri, alongside David Luiz, in the heart of the Blues’ defence last season.
So, will he be the game-changer that Lampard and Chelsea fans hope? The statistics suggest he probably won’t be. Rudiger did have a very good season, but when he was absent for seven games at the back end of last campaign, Chelsea’s defence was not weakened.
With Andreas Christensen taking up more responsibility alongside Luiz, they did concede slightly more goals (1.14 goals conceded per game) than the average for last season (0.92), but not by a whole lot.
When you delve further into expected goals (xG) to see if Chelsea’s defence were just lucky not to concede more, the opposite is actually the case. Their xG (0.92) is exactly the same as it was for the rest of the campaign.
With all that being considered, Lampard will certainly need to make sure that the team, in general, performs better defensively as a unit. Rudiger is a leader so he will help in that regard, but in terms of demonstrably improving the backline simply by being in the team, the jury is very much out on that.
It does take time to implement a style of play but Lampard will need to show that he can in fact organise a defence. During his spell with Derby last season, his side conceded 54 in 46 games which isn’t a bad total but the Premier League is an entirely different level and it will be interesting to see how he resolves the issue.
Sheffield United travel to Stamford Bridge at the weekend, and while they will present a unique challenge with their overlapping centre-backs, it should be the teams best chance of getting their first clean sheet of the campaign.