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The always-excellent lads at Sporting Intelligence shared some interesting findings with us today.
First, the Premier League is suffering an extraordinary goal drought at the moment. Aside from 1998, there have never been so few goals scored per game in the month of August. However, since the arrival of Samuel Eto'o will surely likely possibly put the league back on track, we'll ignore this issue for the moment in favour of something of a startling development.
The average age of Jose Mourinho's starting XI's so far in this young EPL season, is a, erm, not so young 28.2 years old.
As of today, Chelsea is sitting in a shocking (to me, at least) 14th place in the league table of youth.
Granted, the inclusion of the integral Frank Lampard (35), John Terry (32), Ashley Cole (32), and Petr Cech (31) will always drive the average age up.
You might be thinking to yourself, "surely we'll get younger once Luiz (26) spells Terry, and van Ginkel (20) and Mikel (26) rotate in with Lampard," but a closer look at the squad reveals that we won't be getting much younger this season.
Still a ways away from being pensioners, of course, Willian (25) and Mata (25) will join the AM / winger rotation that had since been comprised of the all 22-year-old quartet of Hazard, de Bruyne, Oscar, and Schurrle. In addition, Samuel Eto'o (32) will (hopefully) be stepping in quite a bit for Fernando Torres (29) and Demba Ba (28).
While Chelsea have an extremely bright future and is brimming with young talent, most of that talent is either on loan or unlikely to start every week.
All of this isn't to say that Chelsea have a problem. Personally, I actually rather like the idea of mixing experience with youth. However, as Steve mentioned to me earlier, we don't have a lot of players that are currently in the prime of their careers.
What do you think about the age table? Much ado about nothing or a cause for concern?
<h4>More from We Ain't Got No History:</h4>
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<li><a href="http://www.weaintgotnohistory.com/2013/9/13/4727330/chelsea-vs-norwich-city-u21-premier-league-lineups-open-thread?utm_source=weaintgotnohistory&utm_medium=nextclicks&utm_campaign=blogs">Chelsea vs. Norwich City, U21 Premier League: Lineups & Open Thread</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.weaintgotnohistory.com/2013/9/13/4727000/etoo-again-i-got-it-wrong-about-jose?utm_source=weaintgotnohistory&utm_medium=nextclicks&utm_campaign=blogs">Eto'o again: "I got it wrong" about Jose</a></li>
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