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Chelsea’s attacking woes will eventually end amid Graham Potter’s critical improvement demand to squad

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(Photo by Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)

It’s been a long and frustrating season for Chelsea, who currently occupy 10th spot in the Premier League.

The Chelsea squad was bolstered aggressively in the January transfer window, but the Blues remain winless in their previous four matches in all competition, with their last victory coming against Crystal Palace on January 15 after 1-0 win at Stamford Bridge.

Graham Potter has the board’s backing after their insistence of not judging how this campaign ends regardless of whether or not they clinch Champions League qualification for next season, but the pressure will eventually increase on the 47-year-old should their goalscoring crisis not be fixed.

Since their last win against Crystal Palace, the Blues have scored just one goal across all competitions, with new signing Joao Felix netting his first goal for the club in a 1-1 stalemate with West Ham.

The new signings need time to gel and settle in, but because of the situation Chelsea find themselves in, pressure is on for instant progress and success from the supporters. All season, the Blues have scored a measly 23 goals in 22 Premier League games, averaging a tiny percentage over a goal per game, which is the lowest amount of goals scored by a team in the top half of the table.

Felix has added healthy competition to the squad in the number 10 role, while also being the link between the midfield, striker and wingers. The Portuguese maestro will also push Mason Mount to do better in his role, with Chelsea’s number 19 usually one of the leading scorers for the club.

Kai Havertz has been leading the line up top in recent weeks and is Chelsea’s leading goalscorer with five goals, which isn’t great, but wouldn’t be as costly if the players around him were to chip in with more goals as well.

Another new addition to the team this season, Raheem Sterling, is just behind Havertz with four goals and will be welcomed back to the squad after missing the past couple of weeks through injury.

Mykhailo Mudryk has plenty of potential to be a great for Chelsea, and has since shown signs of his quality since his move from Shakhtar Donetsk. The 22-year-old Ukrainian has the tools to succeed in the Premier League and you get the feeling that once he gets going, he will be hard to stop, making competition all the more harder for Sterling to get back into the line-up.

Hakim Ziyech, Christian Pulisic, Noni Madueke, David Datro Fofana and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang are also among their attacking options.

Chelsea have kept three clean sheets in their last four league outings, so defensively, there is very little cause for concern, however, the goals seem to have dried up.

Who Potter decides to show faith in and stick with in the long term remains unclear, but it surely is only a matter of time before it clicks for Chelsea in attack. Should it not, the Blues can scrap any thought of qualifying for a European spot at the end of the campaign.

The message has been publicly pushed by Potter. On Friday afternoon, he said: “The final third is an area where we can improve and we need to do better.” That exact same message will have, no doubt, been constantly echoed to the attacking unit in the dressing room. After all of the spending, turning chances into goals should now be a case of when, and not if.


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