Chelsea Women's Attacking Force: Beautifully Fitted Pieces of a Blue Puzzle

Chelsea have been brilliant this season. No, not that Chelsea. Fortunately, I'm not here to churn out another depressing article on Werner's poor finishing and Lampard's ineptitude. Lampard's blunt blues are almost a polar opposite of Emma Hayes breathtaking blues. Both sides are full to the brim with talented international attackers. While a lot has been said of Roman Abramovic's dedication to the Chelsea men's side, the effort that's gone into building one of the most reputable sides in women sports has had it's trumpet criminally underblown.

Draw whatever parallels you may but the performances the Chelsea women have put in on the pitch this season are a truly endearing prospect. You could caveat that with Chelsea being one of the strongest teams in the FA WSL with a big drop off in quality as you go down the league. That's true but it's a huge disservice to the players who have remained professional to dispatch those sides and crucially done the same with the higher end teams. This season alone Chelsea have beaten and drawn with Manchester United, beaten Manchester City twice, drawn with Arsenal and beaten Everton. 

Let me introduce you to Chelsea's attacking players. Reader, meet Penile Harder, Sam Kerr, Fran Kirby, Bethany England, Ji So-yun, Guro Reiten, Niamh Charles and if we're being generous meet Erin Cuthbert too. Girls, meet our reader. Just so they're more conversant with you, here's an *interesting* fact about each.

• Pernille is the record transfer in women's football following her move to Chelsea. Undisclosed fee but a rumoured €300,000.

• Sam is the all time highest goalscorer in the NWSL i.e the first division of women's football in America with 77 goals.

• Fran just scored 4 goals in 54 minutes this past week.

• Beth has been Chelsea's top goalscorer the past 2 season's with 14 and 12 goals in the past 2 league seasons

• Ji has only not finished 1st once since 2017 at Chelsea.

• Guro recorded an insane 6 assists across the 2 legs in Chelsea's Champions League tie with Benfica.

• Just go and watch Niamh Charles last minute goal against Man City in the Conti Cup. 

Chelsea through the Numbers

While it's an extremely fun prospect to see all Chelsea's attacking talent take to the pitch at once, I doubt Penille Harder will fancy being paired with her partner, and Chelsea captain, Magdalena Ericksson while Bethany England played on the left. So far this season there's been very different configurations on the team sheet. 

Playing Time

But who has played the most minutes amongst them?

Fran Kirby is has played the most minutes often being used out wide or recently as an attacking midfielder through the middle. Her recent form justifies her consistent selection. Cuthbert and Ji have started the same number of games though few minutes, which isn't surprising as they can both play deeper central midfield roles. Then there's Kerr and Harder. But this is where things get interesting, Bethany England has had fewer opportunities this season despite proving to be a capable goalscorer in previous seasons. With Kerr not taking her chances against United (if we somehow completely ignore that she's the only player to score a goal for Chelsea this December) she might feel hard done by. Not many teams will have someone with the magical left foot of Guro Reiten playing just under 300 minutes. And even though Charles is still seen as a prospect, her minutes are largely down to the star-studded lineup ahead of her.

Goal Scoring

(xG or Expected Goals is basically the number of goals a player from is expected to score based on historical conversation)

Chelsea's highest goalscorer in the league is *drumroll* Fran Kirby. 8 goals is 8 starts but when you consider she's only expected to score just under 4 you appreciate her finishing even more. Of course it helps when you're 5'2 and can still score headers. Sam Kerr is slightly underperforming her xG so for all the talk of her bad finishing it's not drastic. Rather, it's reassuring that she's getting into good positions. Behind those two there's a slight drop to the rest. There's been some hushed rambles about Penille Harder not translating her 27 goal season form last year at Wolfsburg to the WSL. It's definitely not her finishing that's off and she brings much more than just her goals as we'll see. 

Chance Creation

*xA or Expected Assists is basically the probability that the shot following the pass is going to lead to a goal

Leading the assist chart is…*drumroll*...Fran Kirby. And it's well deserved. Her teammates have not entirely made the most of their chances as her 4.5 xA might suggest. She's also had the most actions leading to shooting chances for her teammates. Cuthbert is next but very different to Kirby, her teammates are putting her chances away from clinically. The interesting dynamic here is with Ji. On the surface she has 0 assists but she's expected to have 1.4 which as Erin shows could easily translate to 3 assists. 

But how do Chelsea compare to the rest of the WSL?

This group is more than just a bunch of talented individuals, it's a tight knit group working as a seamless unit. All you need to do is watch a game. There's the an understanding between them whether it's the KERRBY connection or just watching Guro whip balls into her teammates.

For some key attacking metrics here's how Chelsea rank in the league.

(Per 90 stats are very important here as not all the teams have played the same number of fixtures)

It's easy to see how good Chelsea are (or not but I'll get to explaining in a minute) when you look at this. Basically Chelsea are really good at a lot of the most important stats for attacking teams. 

So here's some observations we notice from that graphic.

• Chelsea are within first to third in each of those attacking metrics.

• Sam Kerr, for all the claim of her struggles, has been a really big part of all Chelsea's attacking play. She's top of a lot the stats especially for those about putting herself in positions to finish off chances.

• Fran Kirby is very key to Chelsea's creating chances, especially with passing the ball into the right areas.

• Man City's attacking force is a really huge threat but after the Conti Cup match, Chelsea have proved they're a deeper force than those.

Chelsea are a joy to watch when they're in full flow (which thankfully is a lot of the time). The highs are definitely exhilarating. Sofie Ingle thunderbolt strike to bury Man City was beautiful in more ways than one but so was Niamh Charles volley in the dying minutes. There's the 4 goal haul of Fran Kirby. There's Sam Kerr's December scoring touch. I could go on and on but it's about a lot more than that. Each of these players have huge background stories that have led to this point. This team has the talent. Now maybe it's time to look to conquer the biggest prize in all of the women's game, to dethrone Lyon and bring the UWCL trophy back to Kingdmeadow. It's a lovely opportunity and we'll enjoy every step of the journey this season.