Joao Pedro’s story at Chelsea began as a myth. The 23-year-old striker was said to be on a post-Premier League season holiday at a Brazilian beach at the time his transfer from Brighton to Chelsea became official. A week later, having barely trained with his new team, he was pushed into the starting lineup of the Club World Cup semifinals match against his boyhood club Fluminense and scored 18 minutes in off a rapid counterattack. He capped off his starting debut with a more typical counter attack, receiving the ball some 40 yards from goal behind a scrambling defense before eating the space and cutting back on his right foot for an unstoppable blast inside the box. In a world of fitness optimization, Pedro sent the message that he is so instinctive and talented that he didn’t need training or tactics to win matches.
In a different timeline, Pedro would not have even started that semifinals match. Liam Delap, another high-priced summer addition, had started for Enzo Maresca’s side up until receiving a needless yellow card against Palmeiras in the quarterfinals. His suspension for card accumulation gave Pedro the opening. It’s only a slight exaggeration to suggest that Delap’s elbow may go down as a consequential moment in the European football landscape. At the very least, Delap paid for his blunder by again losing his starting position in the finals against PSG; predictably, Pedro would score Chelsea’s third goal on the way to a 3-0 win over the Champions League winners.
That we even have a battle between two new signings in Pedro and Delap is a byproduct of Chelsea’s recent frenetic transfer strategy under Todd Boehly, in which the club looked to sign young players to long-term contracts in an attempt to spread out the cost of a transfer fee. The search to build this current attack began two summers ago with the addition of Christoper Nkunku, Nicolas Jackson, and Cole Palmer for over a combined $160 million. The search took a different twist last summer with the addition of winger Pedro Neto for another $70.4 million and a second striker in Joao Felix for $61 million (along with the addition of Jadon Sancho on loan). This summer looks to be some sort of finishing touch with the additions of Pedro, Delap, and Jamie Gittens for a combined total of over $196 million.
The strategy appeared to be throwing as many young attackers on the field as a nine-figure budget would allow and seeing what stuck. But what if, either by precision or scattershot approach, Chelsea actually succeeded in building a cohesive, world-class attack, one characterized by directness, speed, and goals?
In his book How To Win the Premier League, former Liverpool Director of Research Ian Graham synthesized his metrics for evaluating an attacker into three categories similar to the “three true outcomes” methodology in baseball: shooting, dribbling, and passing. He describes Mo Salah as a “multifunctional forward” whose analytical model measured those three actions to conclude that the player had “real” value (as opposed to the “fake” value of a player running up numbers in a weaker league).
The three variables seem obvious. We might already make these value judgments in what constitutes an actual world-class attacker. Performing two out of the three skills can still add up to an effective player, but one that can be limited against better opponents. And fielding an attacker who doesn’t score goals puts pressure on other positions to pick up the slack (which was a concern early in Vinicius Jr.’s career). The profile of a three-checkbox attacker is table stakes for sides competing for Champions League trophies.
Liverpool’s front three under Jurgen Klopp created an expectation both in the seamless meshing of skillsets and the value and age each player was acquired at; Mo Salah was the creator and finisher, Firmino dropped between the lines as a playmaker. Sadio Mane was the most direct. Likewise we can point out the variety within Chelsea’s attack: Palmer is the attacking midfielder with creativity and goals. Nkunku is an inside striker who can press. Jackson is best running off the shoulder of the backline. Delap is a forward who runs channels. Neto is the old-school winger who crosses from the sideline. Gittens is a winger who cuts in and dribbles at defenders. Pedro drew comparisons to Firmino for his technical ability to drop back and work between the lines. Each attacker is subtly different; some augment the group more than others.
But the glue is Palmer. It’s rare for any player, much less a 21-year-old, to already have a signature goal technique of cutting inside and passing the ball into the far post. We’ve already seen Palmer benefit from Pedro’s skillset. The off-ball running of Pedro opened up an angle for Palmer’s second goal against PSG, whereas an attacker who prefers the ball played to feet, like Felix, might congested Palmer’s space. Similar to a basketball roster, an attack’s ceiling is determined by the level of its main playmaker. Thus the importance of choosing the right player between similar archetypes in Palmer and Felix.
Palmer was so impactful last season that he literally changed Manchester City’s transfer strategy (the club infamously didn’t include a buyback clause for Palmer; they made sure to not make the same mistake when letting Bashir Humphreys sign for Burnley). In describing Palmer’s impact, Guardiola echoed the same language as Graham.
“It’s not just goals and assists, it is the quality. He’s an incredible threat for Chelsea,” said Guardiola last year.
That eternal search for goals and assists has levels, whether in figuring out if numbers can scale or how an attacker takes away or adds to the rest of the group. With Chelsea earning at least $131 million by winning the Club World Cup, the stakes of finding the right final piece have never been higher. Of course, the club does have more chances to get it right (or wrong) with their large budgets and long contracts. But if the strategy actually works? They become the champions of the world.
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So, could Chelsea win the Premier League this upcoming season?
Their patient possession to bait opponents to press high up the field to create artificial counter attacks is Roberto De Zerbi-esque on an infinite budget. Yet in a way, we saw Maresca’s side in their optimal environment, playing wide open matches against other world-class sides. Premier League opponents will be realistic and sit back, which puts Chelsea in the position of being more likely to win in the Champions League than in England. Though by design, no matter what the results, the roster will have several years together to refine and grow into the perfect combination.