Basel 1-0 Chelsea: Blues fail to register a single shot on target

Basel showed Chelsea their place

Last night’s Champions League clash between FC Basel and Chelsea was one to forget for Jose Mourinho’s men. Chelsea did qualify despite losing to FC Basel, but will not be happy with the manner of the result and with their failure to guarantee top spot in their group.

Key stats

The key stats reflect the way the game was played. Chelsea were dismal and it shows, they didn’t even manage to get a shot on target, a damning statistic for a side with so many expensive attacking players. Basel dominated the game and tested Petr Cech on multiple occasions, with seven efforts on goal including the all important goal.

Performance score

The Performance Scores again are fairly accurate of how the game was played. Chelsea didn’t really offer a lot in what was a sloppy performance from the West London side. The Blues laboured from start to finish and were the worse team throughout most of the game, particularly in the latter stages as Basel snatched the points with a late winner.

Man of the Match

Ivan Ivanov was deservedly the Man of the Match in this tie, as he quelled much of Chelsea’s attacking threat and was a key figure in preventing Chelsea from managing to get a single shot on target. The Basel defender won 100% of his attempted tackles and headers, as well as dominating with eight defensive actions. His solid performance made it very difficult for Chelsea to penetrate Basel’s back line, in what was a stellar centre-back performance.

Key observations

The key observation is quite clearly Chelsea’s attacking impotence. Despite a host of attacking talent, costing almost unrivalled sums, the club only managed two efforts, with neither shot going on target to test the Basel keeper.

As we can see above neither shot was even remotely close to troubling the Basel keeper, or helping to aid the side in getting the opening goal. At times we saw some decent breaks, but Chelsea too often struggled to come up with the telling final pass, or produce that moment of quality that can turn a game on its head.