5 Potential Chelsea Weaknesses Premier League Rivals Can Try to Exploit

Chelsea end the year three points clear at the top of the Premier League, on course for the second-highest points total in history. The arrivals of Diego Costa and Cesc Fabregas have given them a potency they lacked at times last season, while Nemanja Matic’s continued integration has provided a mobile base at the back of midfield.

They are, clearly, an extremely good side, but are there any potential weaknesses from which their rivals can draw hope? 

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Shut down Fabregas

It was Marouane Fellaini who showed the way. Although Cesc Fabregas did end up setting up Chelsea’s goal in the 1-1 draw away to Manchester United, the Belgian’s performance showed that if you can stifle Fabregas, you interrupt the fluency and rhythm of Chelsea’s play as a whole. Sunderland, Newcastle United and Southampton, similarly, have managed to close Fabregas down in recent away games.

Of course, Chelsea have other creators in midfield—and it’s noticeable how Eden Hazard has come into his own recently as teams have focused on Fabregas—but the Spaniard remains the central creative intelligence. Destabilise him and, up to a point, you destabilise Chelsea. 

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Reliance on Diego Costa

Diego Costa’s form this season has been exceptional. He’s scored 13 league goals from just 52 shots (stats from WhoScored.com)—a conversion rate of 25 percent, twice as good as the league average. But you do wonder what would happen if he were to be out for any protracted period of time (so far his hamstrings’ magical restorative capacity and a couple of referees who looked generously on what others may have deemed red cards have spared him).

Didier Drogba has started two Premier League games and has looked rather better than many thought he might, but he is 36 and lacks Costa’s mobility, while Loic Remy, who’s started just one Premier League game so far for Chelsea, is a different sort of player altogether. 

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Lack of pace in the centre of defence

John Terry has had an exceptional year at the heart of the Chelsea defence, operating now as the spare man with Gary Cahill taking on the chief marking responsibilities. The pairing has been highly effective, but it does lack pace, something Newcastle and Southampton have both exposed in recent games.

Were Matic to be drawn out of position, a quick forward could trouble them—as Harry Kane did in the opening quarter of an hour when Tottenham Hotspur lost 3-0 at Stamford Bridge earlier this season. Cahill had taken a heavy blow to the head early in the game, which may have incapacitated him, but their meeting on New Year’s Day should be fascinating.

Fatigue

Jose Mourinho has rotated far less than any other manager in the top half of the Premier League, with seven Chelsea players notching up 1,500 minutes or more of league football so far.

In part, Chelsea’s capacity to rest with the ball means they are more able to sustain that than other clubs—a match is less tiring for them—but still, it could be that weariness begins to creep in towards the spring, particularly if Chelsea are still involved in the Champions League and the FA Cup, and have reached the Capital One Cup final.

Crosses

Thibaut Courtois dominates his box—in fact he’s claimed 58 out of 58 crosses he’s come for according to Squawka—and logic says that Cahill and Terry are both excellent at dealing with balls in the air, but 11 of the 16 goals Chelsea have conceded in the league this season have come from crosses.

Perhaps that’s nothing to be too alarmed by—a lot of goals do come from crosses—but it does suggest a slight fallibility, whether because the full-backs get forward so much there is space behind them to attack, or because there is a failure at the top of the box dealing with second balls.