Cahill sat out today (Wednesday v Boro) with a bug and Chelsea’s defence looked so much better than they have in many of our recent fixtures.
Even with Paulo playing his first match of the season and a struggling Bertrand on the left, (not to mention a first time holding midfielder in Ake) Chelsea were able to keep Middlesbrough scoreless.
The most telling stat is when we look at our clean sheet percentage with and without Cahill playing in League fixtures. Cahill has played 21 matches this season and kept just 4 clean sheets in all those matches leaving him with a 19% clean sheet rate.
In the 7 fixtures that he didn’t play, Chelsea have kept an astonishing 5 clean sheets in 7 fixtures equalling a 71% clean sheet rate.
League Clean Sheet % (League) With Cahill: 19% (4/21) Without Cahill: 71% (5/7)
Now it would be foolish to completely blame Cahill on this one stat alone because he has done quite a few things well. Comparatively, he has done well in all the smaller statistical areas.
He ranks first in clearances (6.7/game) and blocked shots (1.3/game) not to mention his greatly improved passing rate of 89% (3rd behind Mikel and Romeu).
The problem has been Cahill’s less noticeable mistakes. Cahill is a poor tackler. He ranks 10th (1.1/game) just in front of featherweights Juan Mata and Eden Hazard. Supporters compare Cahill to Terry but Cahill likes to play the ball rather than the attacker and that leads to the high amount of blocks but low amount of tackles.
Worst of all is his marking and positioning. There have been far too many goals given up by Cahill from giving an attacker too much space (Yaya Toure) or turning his back on the play.
These errors often go unnoticed as opposed to David Luiz’s noticeable errors. Look at it this way, Chelsea have given up just three goals when Cahill doesn’t play in the League this season. That averages out to .43 goals/game.
When Cahill does play it shoots up to an astonishing 1.38 goals/game when he does.
Goals Per Game % (League) With Cahill: 1.38 goals/game (29/21) Without Cahill: .43 goals/game (3/7) A fan favourite back pairing (though I consider it the nightmare pairing) is Cahill and Luiz at CB together.
Almost all of Chelsea’s worst defensive showings have come with these two paired in the back. Chelsea 2-3 Manchester United, Juventus 3-0 Chelsea, Chelsea 1-4 Atletico, Chelsea 5-4 Manchester United, Manchester City 2-0 Chelsea.
A really telling number that breaks down our CBs through cold hard statistics shows the amount of minutes they are on the pitch in which a goal is scored while they are playing as a CB.
Minutes Per Goals Conceded in the League (Playing as a CB)
1. Branislav Ivanovic: 106.36 minutes (11 goals in 1170 minutes)
2. David Luiz: 78.82 minutes (17 goals in 1340 minutes)
3. John Terry: 74.13 minutes (8 goals in 593 minutes)
4. Gary Cahill: 58.86 minutes (29 goals in 1769 minutes)
I don’t really expect too many people to judge Cahill based on all the information provided above but it`s hard to argue with the raw statistics of Chelsea’s performance when he’s on the pitch.
Rafa’s tactics have been poor since his arrival but one tactic that people have failed to notice is his continuous use of Cahill. Chelsea have not lost a single League fixture with Cahill on the bench, is that just a coincidence?
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