The only Chelsea player to win more than 50% of his duels will blow your mind | OneFootball

The press conference leading up to Chelsea’s game yesterday, Enzo Maresca was asked about his squad and whether a lack of physicality was hurting them, especially with some important players out.

Coach agreed wholeheartedly with the idea:

“Absolutely, it is an important part. Like I said, when reviewing the first game played against [Aston Villa, earlier this season], we had more physical players like Wes, Romeo and even Nico – who we said many times off the ball is working very hard – and this is the reason why in this moment, we are struggling a little bit in terms of results,” the Chelsea boss said.

Well, those predictions couldn’t have come more true. Chelsea followed their usual pattern in the game – taking the lead and looking confident before gradually losing confidence, going back into their shell and being beaten.

A bit part of that was Villa turning the tide physically, and at full time the stats weren’t pretty reading. It’s partly squad construction, but duels are as much about desire as strength.

Chelsea stars fail to win physical battle

Cole Palmer and Christopher Nkunku complain about a decision.

A glance at SofaScore shows just how nasty it got. Simply glancing down the “Duels” column shows a team that weren’t competing physically. Enzo Fernandez won 7 of 17, Christopher Nkunku 7 of 14, Moises Caicedo and Malo Gusto 5 of 10 each, Reece James 3 of 8, Pedro Neto 1 of 7, Levi Colwill 3 of 7, Marc Cucurella 3 of 6, Tosin Adarabioyo 2 of 4.

Incredibly, the only Blues player to win more than 50% of their duels was Cole Palmer, with 5 of 7. He’s the last person on the pitch we would have predicted to do so. It’s actually a pretty damning indictment of the rest of the team that Palmer, whose job is to create and score goals and otherwise pretty much stay out of trouble, has outdone them in such a key area.