All in all, I am sufficiently whelmed. Take out a lot of red card salt, and squint at the soft early season schedule (Arsenal, City, Bournemouth, Newcastle, Villa all still to come) I think this team is probably about the same as last year, which mostly without Palmer is great.

Chelsea are much less reliant on transition for chance creation this season. Only 5% of their shots and 12% of their xG are coming from "fast" attacks in 25/26, as opposed to 7% of shots and 13% of xG in 24/25. Small difference, but feels somewhat more sustainable.

Only 8% of Chelsea's shots last season were inside the 6 yard box, that's nearly doubled to 14% this season (1.2 p90 up to 2 p90). A huge benefit to chance quality.

Through 11 matches, Chelsea are +0.25 xGD per match on corners. Last year they were +0.07 xGD per match. That trend is worth ~7 goals or 3 points over the course of the season.

Chelsea last season ran a 0.11 xG/shotF, 0.11 xG/shotA, driven by the back half of the season where the attack stuttered into lots of long shots. So far, Chelsea have the best xG/shotF in the league (0.13) and remain 0.11 xG/shot against (11v11).

It's probably too early to start parsing by game states and halves and such through 11 matches, but Chelsea have been much better after the first goal so far all season, and have mostly avoided fading in second halves. One to keep an eye on moving forward.

Something to keep an eye on, box touches against down from ~25 to 18, shots down from 11 to 9.5. Take out the red card minutes and Chelsea's defensive numbers looks MUCH improved (1.24 xGA p90 down to 0.86 xGA p90 11v11, no penalties).

to this clip**

It will tonight - I forgot to record live, so had to let YT process so I can download and upload the audio.

That man’s career has a force field around it that turns perfectly intelligent people into the stupidest people on the planet I swear to god

Especially if they choose not to shovel the penalty area before hand