Jorginho blames Abraham-less Chelsea’s finishing for West Ham’s first win in 17 years at Stamford Bridge

Football isn’t a complicated game. We can make it as complicated as we want to, but at the end of the day, the team who score more than the other will always win the game. And if you don’t score any goals, you will never win (without the help of some sort of tie-breaking procedure, such as a penalty kick shootout).

Chelsea failed to score any goals yesterday. And thus, we did not win.

That may be as simple as any analysis gets, but when you take 19 shots, put 6 of those on target, and generate an expected goals (xG) number of around 2.7, it’s fair to say that the finishing has let the team down.

That this was West Ham’s first win at Stamford Bridge since September 2002, a Paolo Di Canio-inspired 3-2 win, only added to the disappointment.

Chelsea vice-captain Jorginho, who seems to have become the sacrificial lamb as far as Lampard’s concerned for when Chelsea need goals late in games — not sure that’s the best move, unfortunately, since it seems to destroy Chelsea’s ability to hold the ball and build through the center — rued Chelsea’s foibles in front of goal afterwards.

“I think we were not clinical, we need to be more clinical when we create the chances. We weren’t and then we conceded. Then it is difficult.”

“Maybe [it was fatigue], but we created some chances but didn’t score. That’s the problem.”

-Jorginho; source: Express

Head coach Frank Lampard was quick to point to this problem post-match as well, though it shouldn’t be ignored that Chelsea’s chance-creation also dropped off precipitously in the second-half, just when it was needed the most. Sure, finishing any one of the number of first-half chances would’ve been exceedingly useful, but missing those doesn’t really excuse the massive power outage the attack suffered in the second-half. We practically flatlined after the first 45 minutes.

Understat

That said, there’s no reason to jump to drastic conclusions in this regard just yet. This was the first game since mid-September in which Chelsea failed to score: a run of 14 straight with at least one goal since losing 1-0 at home to Valencia. The only other game in which Chelsea failed to find the back of the net was the very first one of the season, when we lost to Manchester United. Although if Tammy Abraham misses too much time, we might have to revisit this issue.

Fortunately, Chelsea’s leading scorer is on the mend and could be back on Wednesday.