The Technical Area – Fabregas and Costa’s Chelsea Debuts Analysed

Chelsea’s Monday night meeting with Burnley saw a trio of players handed their league debuts for the Blues, with Thibaut Courtois, Cesc Fabregas and Diego Costa afforded their first starts for the club. After racking up an impressive 3-1 win over the promoted side, the London club are already picking up plenty of new investors ahead of three very favourable home matches in the next five, with Leicester, Swansea and Villa all poised to make their way to Stamford Bridge.

In our second Technical Area piece of the 2014/15 season, we take a look at just how Costa and Fabregas fared as Jose Mourinho’s title favourites got their season up and running.

As the average position map from Chelsea’s win at Burnley shows, Costa (number 19) was less advanced when in possession than either of the widemen, Andre Schurrle (number 14) and Eden Hazard (number 10). The summer signing’s hard work up top meant both Hazard and Schurrle managed more touches in the final third (45 and 34 respectively), while Costa’s 32 was just six more than Fabregas’ (number 4) tally of 26 – highlighting how advanced the Spaniard found himself on the ball, in spite of a starting berth in the double-pivot. Indeed, his central midfield partner Nemanja Matic registered just six by comparison.

The conductor in the centre of the park, Fabregas was ever available to his team-mates – he registered 111 touches and received a pass every 1.2 minutes, quicker than any other Blues player. Impressively, Fabregas and Costa were first and second respectively for passes received in the opposition half (44 and 40); an indication of just how crucial they will both be to Mourinho’s gameplan.

Unsurprisingly, Fabregas created more goal-scoring opportunities than any Chelsea team-mate – three key passes and a couple of through balls helped him serve up a pair of debut assists. Like Hazard, he failed to register a single attempt at Turf Moor, though did manage four touches inside the box (only one fewer than Hazard and Costa) and still endeavoured to serve up an 11-point return for his Fantasy Premier League owners, with his creativity looking difficult to ignore.

When compared to other forwards, Costa’s stats indicate he is exactly the type of industrious character required to lead the line for Mourinho. A total of 72 touches was second amongst strikers for the Gameweek behind Marouane Chamakh’s 73 for Palace – to put that into perspective, he averaged 1.3 minutes per touch, compared to Fernando Torres (1.8), Demba Ba (2.2) and Samuel Eto’o (2.4) from the previous season.

Amongst forwards, Costa’s 24 passes received in the final third was equalled by Saido Berahino and bettered only by Steven Naismith’s 25 – two players who were fielded in “the hole” behind a lone forward for their respective clubs at the weekend. This is a by-product of his tendency to drop into the deeper positions and led to him making just five touches inside the box, though there’s an argument that, after going 3-1 ahead, the Blues went into cruise control and simply contained their opponents for the rest of the match.

Whilst Andre Schurrle managed five attempts over the 90 minutes thanks to some speculative long range efforts, Costa kept his efforts constrained to inside the area – the Spain international fired two shots against The Clarets and sparked Chelsea’s comeback by bagging the equalizer after Scott Arfield had fired the hosts ahead. This backs up last term’s stats, where he scored all but one of his 27 goals for Atletico from inside the box, again highlighting an unselfish streak that is likely to see him find a team-mate rather than take a chance from distance. Indeed, Costa chalked up a highly impressive 95.5% pass accuracy in the final third on Monday.

Surprisingly, in spite of his physical presence, Costa isn’t too great in the air. Last season in La Liga, he won just 26% of aerial challenges and this continued at Turf Moor, with just three successful from 10 attempts.

Nonetheless, the pair’s overall contribution to the team cause shows exactly why Mourinho was so willing to splash the cash over the close-season. Fabregas’ stats underline his Fantasy potential regardless of that deep-lying position alongside Matic and, although it’s early days, Costa’s disciplined displays as the lone forward could well prove beneficial to the likes of Hazard. The Belgian had the freedom to torment Burnley with nine successful dribbles on Monday evening but, as mentioned, failed to fire a single attempt. With Costa alongside him, though, Hazard’s involvement in the final third certainly wasn’t diminished, which suggests he will be as potent as ever once his match sharpness is up to scratch.

*The Technical Area is put together using the statistics and maps available in our members area. For access to such data and tools on every player, team and match of the 2014/15 season, and for exclusive members articles like this, click here for details.