How Chelsea are paying the price for Club World Cup glory: The alarming injury crisis testing their world-class setup to breaking point, which stars are playing through pain and their detailed plan to fight back

Chelsea have one of the most sophisticated data setups in world football, with their BlueCo ownership making huge strides in the area since purchasing the club in May 2022. 

Back then, BlueCo estimated the club were 20 years behind their counterparts in other sports in the United States when it came to data analytics. 

Fast forward three years and it’s a different story: just last week, Chelsea were interviewing for another performance data analyst to join their growing army of specialists – including Sachin Gupta, their chief analytics officer, and Javier Fernandez, their director of data science, who has a PhD in Artificial Intelligence.

They use a data transformation engine called PowerBI. They use coding languages such as Python to interrogate statistics. They use suppliers such as Stats Perform, Statsbomb, Second Spectrum and SkillCorner. 

They fly drones over training sessions, monitor GPS vests and help tailor workloads. They leave out a TV on which the players can peruse the performance metrics from their last match, perhaps to coax the competitive nature out of their stars if they see others’ numbers are better than theirs. They innovate, inform and intend on staying a step ahead of everyone else.

It is all with the aim of supporting Enzo Maresca’s first-team decision-making and for those of us barely savvy enough to work our iPhones beyond using WhatsApp, it is an impressive body of work happening behind the scenes of Cobham on a daily basis.

But even these analytical experts are in uncharted territory this season. For all the data at their fingertips, when Chelsea won the Club World Cup, there was no crystal ball telling them the precise impact that summer success would have on this current campaign.

There were just 25 days in between Chelsea’s players lifting the trophy alongside President Trump in the United States and being asked to lace up their boots again for two pre-season friendlies in the space of 48 hours. A week later, the Premier League began.

Seven weeks in, Maresca is missing nine players, the most of any team in the Premier League, and seven of them are injured. For Saturday’s visit of Liverpool, he will not have (deep breath) Cole Palmer, Tosin Adarabioyo, Wesley Fofana, Andrey Santos, Liam Delap, Levi Colwill or Dario Essugo.

Trevoh Chalobah is also suspended after his red card against Brighton last weekend, and that’s before we get to Mykhailo Mudryk. It is understood Moises Caicedo, Joao Pedro and Enzo Fernandez have been continuing to play out of necessity, despite carrying minor issues.

They are the walking wounded; a squad ridiculed by outsiders for being bloated but one which insiders will tell you is stretched in reality. Joao Pedro even asked Maresca to leave him out of a line-up at Brentford a few weeks back. He started, as Chelsea had no other No 9, with Marc Guiu seemingly not trusted to lead the line by his head coach.

Having begun with some impressive displays, most notably at West Ham, the strain is starting to show, and Chelsea welcome the champions on Saturday on the back of a three-game winless run in the Premier League. So how do they manage their stars with two games a week and the busiest period of the year still a couple of months away? 

‘They’ll be taking a holistic approach and tracking a huge amount of data from the physical output of all of their players in games and in training,’ Stephen Smith, CEO and founder of Kitman Labs, the world’s leading sports performance intelligence company, tells Daily Mail Sport.

‘They’ll be testing and assessing those athletes day-to-day from a medical and recovery perspective, which will include understanding how they’re sleeping; their biomechanics, the build-up of blood and hormonal markers and how their body is clearing any waste product from exercise; performing soft tissue work on athletes to understand how their muscles are doing and the build-up of any specific wear and tear; assessing their physical output to find out if there’s any degradation of performance; and speaking with athletes to understand how they feel and how their bodies are responding.’

Kitman have worked with multiple clubs worldwide, including Chelsea, and Smith continues: ‘Chelsea have done as good a job as you can do in their scenario. Obviously, it’s extremely challenging to come off an elongated season like theirs, have a short break, and then get straight back into the level of competitiveness that’s needed within the Premier League.’

Chelsea have used the most players in the Premier League this season, 24 in total. That is partly for rotation purposes but also enforced by their long list of absentees.

The Blues knew there could be a hangover from the Club World Cup and so built a squad that included two players per position. Jorrel Hato was signed to cover Marc Cucurella at left back, for example, but he has had to fill in as a centre back amid their injury crisis.

Hato’s versatility is one reason why Chelsea did not sign a new central defender despite Maresca’s plea following Colwill’s ACL injury – suffered in their very first training session back after the summer – as they felt there were no obvious upgrades available in the market compared to their in-house options. Daily Mail Sport understands that stance is unlikely to change in January unless their injury issues become so severe they are forced into a rethink.

‘They only have one ever-present player – Caicedo – whereas most other teams have at least two-to-four ever-present players in their starting XI (this season),’ Smith continues.

‘Chelsea are focusing on rotating their starting XI from game to game, to try to counter-balance the elongation of last season and any residual effects from the Club World Cup. It’s certainly challenging for them, but they’ve showcased a smart approach so far and it shows the level of effort and detail being put in by their backroom and coaching staff.’

Caicedo is Chelsea’s beating heart in the centre of the pitch. He starts every match that matters but it is to his credit that his body has resisted breaking down. Losing him would be devastating for Maresca with the Ecuadorian’s deputy, Essugo, unlikely to return before 2026 after having thigh surgery.

Chelsea have covered the least distance out of all the clubs in the Premier League this season. They have managed 616km collectively, the next-fewest being West Ham on 638.

That is not a slight on Maresca’s side. Their possession-based philosophy means they can spend less time chasing the ball than others. It could be a bonus that they are able to save energy, though Liverpool will arrive at Stamford Bridge boasting the Premier League’s best possession statistics at 64 per cent.

Chelsea are trying their best to get through a testing time but naturally, with the winter schedule coming up, there are underlying concerns that fatigue could kick in further. So, could their situation worsen closer to Christmas? ‘This is the first year that we’ve had the type of elongation we’ve seen from the Club World Cup in its new format, so we’ll have to wait and see how it shakes out,’ Smith says.

‘Traditionally in the Premier League we see a higher number of injuries in the opening weeks because players are acclimatising back into the demands of the game. We generally see that reduce back to a “normal” level following the first three, four weeks of the season.

‘Following that, historically, we have seen an increase in the number of injuries as we go through the winter schedule, presumably because of the amount of congestion during that period.

‘We then notice towards the end of the season another slight increase in the number of injuries, presumably due to the ongoing effects of the season, fatigue building up and the heightened competitive pressures at that point of the campaign.’