Chilwell: Frustrated and disappointed, but ‘moving in the right direction’

Ben Chilwell, and the role in which he has been deployed by head coach Mauricio Pochettino, have come under a fair bit of fire since yesterday’s 1-0 home defeat to Nottingham Forest, and while such criticisms are not baseless, if any one of the number of Chilly’s inviting low balls across the penalty area had been turned home, we would be singing a very different tune I suspect.

But they weren’t, and so we aren’t.

As the man himself points out, if you don’t score, you’re not going to win. Simple, this game of football is.

“Very frustrating result and everyone if very disappointed in the changing room right now.

“If you look at the stats we dominated the game, had the possession, but the most important stat is the goals. We lost in that department and lost the game, that is the black and white of it and we need to improve.”

Chelsea amassed over 2.0 expected goals, but had no actual goals to show for it. Considering the we had taken over 20 shots, that translates to a lot poor final balls in and around the area, adding to the palpable sense of frustration and disappointment.

The players of course want to do better as well. They signed up to not only be part of this project but also to win things along the way, and win something together as a group. We all know how important winning is.

“Mistakes are part of football, and it is about how you recover from those mistakes and try and get back into games. After we conceded we get too erratic which suited them more and we lost control of the game which is not what we wanted and that is what we need to improve, continuing to play our football after conceding.”

“We are moving in the right direction. Every game we have controlled possession and the majority of matches we have played. We need to finish chance, be more ruthless and stay composed to get back into game. That’s the final bit, finishing our chances.”

-Ben Chilwell; source: Chelsea FC

While scoring goals isn’t our only problem, a few goals here and there on a more consistent basis would certainly make our task easier in every respect. In isolation, yesterday’s game is just “one of those games”. Trouble is, we’ve made more than our fair share of those games in recent times.

We have a short break now to calm down, reset, regroup, and come back better as we head into the season proper.

I’m sure things will get better!

Probably.