Not that the BBC Team Of The Season is the defining moment of the season, but not a single Chelsea player have made the selection. Considering the Blues sit fourth, occupying a Champions League spot, did any Chelsea players deserve to be in the Team Of The Season?
No Chelsea Players Make BBC Team Of The Season
BBC Team Of The Season
Just like with the season, Liverpool absolutely ran away with the BBC’s team. Seven made it with almost the entire defence calling Anfield home. Manchester City had two representatives while Leicester and Manchester United also had one player each.
GK – Alisson
DF – Trent Alexander-Arnold, Virgil van Dijk, Caglar Soyuncu, Andy Robertson
M – Kevin De Bruyne, Jordan Henderson, Bruno Fernandes
F – Mohamed Salah, Sergio Aguero, Sadio Mane
And BBC’s Player Of The Season went to Liverpool’s captain, Jordan Henderson.
Chelsea Good But Not Great
Argue about the players selected by the BBC all you want. Where’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Adama Traore or Dean Henderson? They all have earned at minimum some consideration for any Team Of The Season, not just the BBC’s.
But using BBC’s XI, who from Chelsea should replace any of the XI? Maybe you don’t agree with Alisson, who missed nine games this year, because the Reds marched on undefeated without him. However, Kepa hasn’t had a great season, unless you consider getting benched a positive.
Defending this year has been a disaster for Chelsea as the team conceded late, unnecessary goals and drop points. Because of it, manager Frank Lampard has altered the centre backs quite frequently, as well as left-back. How can any of them, who don’t even play well enough to lock down a spot in their own team, be one of the best in the league? Simply, they can’t.
In attack, Chelsea’s youngsters have played reasonably well. They may develop into elite forwards but haven’t hit that level yet.
Only in midfield do any Chelsea players really have an argument for best in the league this year. Mateo Kovacic and Jorginho have had a stellar season together in the Blues’ midfield.
But are either one better than De Bruyne, who has the highest rating for any Premier League player this season according to WhoScored at 7.92?
What about Jordan Henderson? Well if he was the best player in the league this season, which is debatable, then it’s impossible for Kovacic or Jorginho to replace him in the XI.
Bruno Fernandes averaged a 7.82 rating on WhoScored which makes him the second-highest rated player in the league this season. However, he only played five games for Man United, arriving in January from Sporting Lisbon, which begs the question of how you determine who gets in the team of the season?
Even after removing Fernandes, Kovacic and Jorginho don’t come close to next best midfielders in the league with neither cracking an average rating of 7 on WhoScored. Traore, Riyad Mahrez, Wilfried Ndidi, James Maddison, Jack Grealish, and a whole host of other midfielders and attackers rated better than Chelsea’s two best.
Bright Future at Chelsea
As individual players, no one from Chelsea stood out from the pack, having good seasons at best. No one, though, has had a great year. Yet, they’ve still got themselves in prime position to qualify for the Champions League if and when the Premier League returns from the coronavirus stoppage.
Lampard has successfully made this Chelsea squad better than the sum of its parts, despite it being labelled as a season of transition at the beginning of the campaign.
With a host of Chelsea’s players still in their early 20s or younger, plenty of them could make it into Teams Of The Season in the future.
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