In Defense of Gary Cahill: Not the Source of Chelsea’s Defensive Problems By Oscar Puente #viaChelseaIndex Yesterday, fellow Chelsea Index Manager RamStamford wrote an article calling out Gary Cahill for being the weak link in the Chelsea defense, and in the spirit of friendly debate, I thought I would try to argue in defense of the defender. While I agree with a lot of Ram’s points, I think that there’s a bigger cause at the root of any “problems” Chelsea’s defense might have (and it’s worth pointing out here that Chelsea’s defense is tied for the best record in the EPL), and it’s name is Ivanovic. While it is definitely true that Cahill is having his statistically worst season yet in Chelsea blue, an important part of understanding defender statistics is by putting them into a context. Thus, looking at Ivanovic’s numbers will not only be helpful but even vital to being able to really analyze Cahill’s performance: The stats above strongly indicate that Ivanovic is contributing a lot less to the defense this year than he did last season. While his attempted tackles number has gone up, I have already analyzed that Chelsea under Mourinho’s second reign tend to have the majority of their tackles higher up the pitch. Thus, the increase in attempted tackles likely indicate that Ivanovic is playing further up than in the past, and this is corroborated by the significant decrease in defensive actions that tend to come closer to the defensive third, like clearances and blocks. Now, in fairness, there could be two possible explanations for Ivanovic’s decrease in defensive stats: either he specifically is focusing on that aspect of his game a lot less, or Chelsea as a whole are having to defend a lot less often. In order to tease out which of those two is the more likely explanation, we can take a look at some of Ivanovic’s attacking stats to see what they tell us about his average position on the pitch: Now we are starting to have a clearer picture of where Ivanovic is hanging out and what he’s focusing on doing. The fact that he has more than double his rate of take-ons, while significantly changed his passing patterns (more backwards and less forwards) indicate that he is playing much higher up the pitch than ever before. Now, for an article that’s nominally about Cahill, we just dedicated a whole lot of copy to Ivanovic. But the point being here that defenses, perhaps more than any other area of the pitch, work as a unit, and the actions of one player has a massive impact on the others. Thus, if Ivanovic is playing higher up the pitch and focusing on attack, that is leaving Cahill to focus on defending the entire right side on his own. That’s not to say that Cahill is doing a particularly good job, because he hasn’t, but it is meant to show that it’s not necessarily mostly his fault. One would have to imagine that without the help of the defensively excellent Azpilicueta, John Terry’s renaissance would not be going quite as well as it has been. Now, in his article yesterday, Ram chose to highlight a couple of sequences that showcased Cahill’s defensive failings this season. I thought it would be interesting to look at those same sequences and track Ivanovic’s movement as well. Let’s start off with a goal conceded to Schalke that resulted in a Chelsea draw: The above screen grabs are from my initial match report of that game, and while Cahill didn’t exactly cover himself in glory, it’s equally important to note that he was left hung out to dry completely by Ivanovic. By the time Huntelaar is taking the shot that results in the goal, Ivanovic isn’t even in the frame. That left Cahill with too much to do on his own, and was the primary origin of the dangerous situation. Now let’s take a look at the sequence that Ram chose to highlight of a chance for Gayle when Chelsea went to Crystal Palace: Notice the positioning of the defensive line there. Terry and Azpi are taking up the positions that would normally be reserved for the CBs, and Cahill has been sucked out to a wide right position to where you would normally expect a RB to be. Ivanovic, meanwhile, is neither covering the late runners nor doing anything to stop Gayle’s advance. In fact, Matic has to abandon the runners and come over to help Cahill, who is in a dangerous situation against a tricky dribbler. By the time Gayle’s skips past Cahill to take a shot, Ivanovic is completely on his heels, and has contributed approximately zero to the defensive efforts in this passage of play. Chelsea were lucky not to concede there, and it was largely Ivanovic’s fault. Now, these are only two incidents, but they are the two that were specifically previously chosen to highlight Cahill’s failings, and both can be attributed just as much (if not moreso) to Ivanovic’s play. He repeatedly puts Cahill into bad situations where Gary has too much to do, and it is hurting Chelsea’s defense. Yet another example of this comes in Lampard’s goal at the Etihad: Notice how Ivanovic is playing more of a CDM position here, leaving the right wing completely open for Milner to attack. Even worse, when Milner does exactly that, Ivanovic doesn’t even track his runner into the box, leaving Lampard wide open for a simple goal. At the time, the excellent Marc Nicholls had this to say in our Match Review: [ “Yet another disappointing moment from the right side of the defense. Schürrle switched off as Milner slipped behind him, and Ivanović ball-watched as Lampard made his late run to level the score. It may be time to sit Branislav” ] Again, these are just a few examples, but it is not a stretch to say that Ivanovic was at fault for both draws in Manchester as well as at least one of the goals against Newcastle. His poor positioning and seeming lack of disinterest in defending are costing Chelsea, and it’s not hard to picture a truly elite team targeting Chelsea’s right and tearing to shreds in a big game. While Cahill hasn’t been anywhere near his best, a large part of that is down to systematic failures. Gary is not good when he is left with a lot to do, especially in the area of decision making. But what he is excellent at is playing off a conservative, intelligently-positioned partner, and mopping up any loose ends. Do you know who that sounds like? Allow me to quote the strangely excellent pundit, Gary Neville [ “For technical defending, not making a mistake, not being in the wrong position, not getting caught out… I don’t see him making a mistake” ] Do you know who that quote is about? Hint: it’s not Ivanovic. It’s Davepilicueta. The point being that Cahill would be much better if he were to play between Terry and Azpi. In fact, I would argue that Cahill is one of the best defenders in the world when he doesn’t need to make a lot of decisions and all he has to do is clean up any leftover messy situations, thus making him the perfect person to play between those two guys. The “solution” to Chelsea’s defensive problems would not be to drop Cahill. It would be to drop Ivanovic, bring in Luis, and move Azpi over to his natural side. Let’s just hope Jose figures that out before the knockout stages of the Champions League roll around, because if we have a gaping hole on the right side of defense where Ivanovic used to play when we face PSG, they really might make us pay for it.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 09:45:24 +0000
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