Chelsea's troubles with scoring goals is as great as the ages. It has plagued and hampered them over five years and Graham Potter is finding the same troubles that those before him have had.
Albeit slightly reactionary following a run of impressive wins, Chelsea's 0-0 draw against Brentford demonstrated the pitfalls once more. Whereas Mason Mount's double against Aston Villa got them out of a tight corner with thanks to Kepa Arrizabalaga, nobody was able to do the attacking bidding against the Bees.
Potter chose to rotate out Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Raheem Sterling but Mason Mount, Kai Havertz and Armando Broja should still be enough talent to win matches. Havertz's performance in particular was of massive concern. The German looks extremely short of confidence and is surely slipping down the pecking order given Broja's tenacity and impact when he plays.
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These are all things that Potter will learn. It's still early days, seven games to be exact, and there's more reason to be positive than negative. The truth is that even with tactical ingenuinity and flexibility, Chelsea will struggle to be a major force with their current players.
This isn't just an attacking problem, either. More depth at wingback would have allowed Ruben Loftus-Cheek to continue his good form in the centre of the park, a defensive midfielder further frees up the team as well. These are the same issues Tuchel had. In pre-season he said, "Listen, it’s the same players, so why should everything change?
“We will see, hopefully, development, but at the moment, maybe we have the same issues because we have the same players.” That was after a 4-0 defeat to Arsenal. Chelsea would go on to sign Wesley Fofana, Marc Cucurella and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang after that match, but the German wasn't afforded time to correct the seeds of mistake that had started to grow across six months of stale football.
Potter has made better use of these tools so far, with Aubameyang managing three goals in his first seven matches, three in six for starts. His goalscoring prowess has been much needed and the clinical edge was missing as the raw Broja overpowered Ben Mee but lacked composure. Havertz didn't overpower anyone.
So far the Blues have scored 13 goals in the seven matches under Potter and conceded just two. It's similar to the way that Tuchel came out of the blocks, though not necessarily by design. Speaking after his side struggled for fluidity before the 70th minute, Potter said, "I always look at the team rather than individuals. I’d rather attack better."
Although not quite highlighting his team's deficiencies the same way Tuchel did, Potter did highlight the struggles in attack that was shown for two thirds against Thomas Frank's side.
“It’s not easy against Brentford. We were close with Kai, close with Mason but we can improve in that area I think. We’re always disappointed when we don’t win. Over the course of the game a point is fair, they had chances and we pushed at the end."
Chelsea did look sharper once Aubameyang came into the action alongside a lively Christian Pulisic and Carney Chukwuemeka cameo. The lack of outstanding work for David Raya in the Brentford goal was still evident though, as Chelsea's finishing touch was found wanting.
The struggle, which has culminated with just two goals in 10 games for Havertz, two in 10 for Mount, three for Sterling and two in the league for Aubameyang, is proof of why the Blues have been linked with moves for Christopher Nkunku and Rafael Leao.
Potter will continue to say that he wants to improve players rather than just buy new ones, but his words already had an element of Tuchel frustration in them, similar to the 1-1 draw with RB Salzburg, and if that's the case then maybe 'same players, same issues," is a prominent point and one that will only carry over to Potter.
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