THE DATA DAY: STOKE CITY V CHELSEA

The Blues were beaten 3-2 at Stoke on Saturday, with Jose Mourinho’s side paying the price for failing to convert our chances, as shown by our statistical breakdown of the game…

The Blues had 15 efforts on goal in comparison to the home side’s nine. Stoke, however, scored with all three of their attempts on target while we scored from two of our six.

We dominated the opening 45 minutes of the game, and although the second half was more even, overall we saw more of the ball, enjoying a 57.1 per cent share of possession.

Eighty-five per cent of our passes found their intended target, with Stoke successfully completing 73 per cent of their passes.

In the attacking third, meanwhile, we completed 122 successful passes, almost double the number of Stoke.

Stoke’s first goal, scored by Peter Crouch, came from a set piece as we failed to deal with a corner, and in the defensive area of the pitch we won only 18 of 50 aerial duels, possibly due to the fact that with the Stoke striker so prominent in the air, often the focus for the opposing side is to defend the second ball rather than the initial one.

Mark Hughes’s side looked to utilise their aerial threat as often as possible, and so it proved, with the top three performers in that area made up entirely of Stoke players – Jonathan Walters, Crouch and Marc Wilson.

Andre Schurlle was the standout Chelsea performer, scoring a goal in each half as well as hitting the bar, and the German attacker had more attempts on goal than any other player with five.

Juan Mata, making his third successive start, completed more passes than any other player with 63, while in the attacking third Eden Hazard completed 29 of his 30 attempted passes.

In his post-match press conference, Mourinho praised the performance of our attacking trio – Schurrle, Mata and Hazard – in behind Fernando Torres. Hazard was a constant thorn in the Stoke defence, successfully completing 13 of his attempted 14 take-ons, and the Belgian was also fouled more times than any other player.

Defensively, Cesar Azpilicueta, making his sixth consecutive start at left-back, won all four of his attempted tackles, the highest number of any Chelsea player, with John Terry making the most clearances with nine.

Saturday’s game was the first time we’d suffered defeat at the Britannia Stadium.

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