Ben Chilwell picks out three things Chelsea need to improve if they want to end dire run

Ben Chilwell is Chelsea’s vice captain, and with Reece James out injured, the responsibility of taking the armband – and fronting up after a loss – falls to the left back.

Speaking in an interview on the Chelsea website, Chilwell was the latest person to have to try and explain how this billion pound team looks so poor every time it steps on the pitch. Like everyone else, he’s left pointing to the obvious issues, without being able to explain what’s causing them or how they might be fixed:

“Very frustrating result and everyone is 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.

“Mistakes are part of football, and it is about how you recover from those mistakes and try and get back into games. 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 chances, be more ruthless and stay composed to get back into games. That’s the final bit, finishing our chances.”

All those things are clearly an issue, and in the end the one defensive mistake we did make wouldn’t matter much if we had a three goal lead at that point. How we’ve spent a billion and ended up with one striker (who was in the Spanish third tier before last season) is just mystifying given a lack of goals has been our problem for 5 years or more now.