Chelsea 2019/20 Review: End of Season Report Card for the Blues

When Eden Hazard left Chelsea last summer, Blues fans were scared. Their saviour was gone and could not be replaced in the transfer market. Chelsea were going from relying on an elite talent to academy gems with minimal top-flight experience.

Frank Lampard's return as manager gave fans a huge boost of optimism, but it was a cautious optimism. Things probably weren't going to go well, but the Blues defied expectations and managed to seal Champions League football, ensuring that the 2019/20 season will largely be remembered fondly.

Let's take a look at how the campaign played out for Chelsea.


League Performance

Premier League - 4th

A 4-0 loss to Manchester United on the opening day of the season had fans fearing for the worst, but the ship was quickly steadied and Chelsea went on a run of just one loss in their next 11 games. Only eventual champions Liverpool could stop them.

Things began to unravel in November as Chelsea's hold on the top four started to slip. Five losses in seven games even prompted rumours Lampard would soon be sacked. This was the carnage we all expected from his first season at Chelsea.

However, despite the bumpy ride, Chelsea held on. They came in clutch when needed (for the most part), although let's not pretend like the shortcomings of other sides didn't play a major part. Leicester began to crumble, but the important thing is that Lampard's side didn't. They did enough to hold on when other top sides couldn't.

Chelsea needed to get into the Champions League, and they did it. With the transfer ban lifted, getting into Europe would make their rebuild so much easier, and that has already proven to be the case.

Job done.


Domestic Cup Performance

Carabao Cup - 4th Round

This one didn't go well for Chelsea.

A 7-1 win over Grimsby Town in the third round was great as it saw plenty of top performances from some more academy stars. Marc Guehi, Billy Gilmour, Ian Maatsen and Tino Anjorin all made appearances, and it all looked to be going well.

However, the fun died out in the next round when the Blues met Manchester United. A relatively strong side fell to a 2-1 loss to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's men - a defeat which was more damning than the elimination from the competition.

There's no denying that this competition was hardly near the top of Chelsea's priorities, but falling out so early at the hands of such fierce rivals was about as bad as it could have been.

FA Cup - Final

Chelsea's run to the final of the FA Cup was outstanding. Early wins over Nottingham Forest and Hull City set the tone, and that's when the Blues moved on to the big boys.

A 2-0 win over Jürgen Klopp's Liverpool in the fifth round had Chelsea dreaming of success in the competition, and a 1-0 win over Leicester only increased the excitement. However, the best came in the semi-final, when Chelsea got one over on United. Finally.

A 3-1 win which still haunts David de Gea's nightmares was the highlight of Chelsea's post-lockdown season, and it set up a final with an Arsenal side who were well behind in the race for the top four. Surely this was going to be easy?

Well, it wasn't. Mikel Arteta won his first silverware at Lampard's expense, and that's never fun.


Continental Cup Performance

Champions League - Last 16

Drawn in a B-tier Group of Death alongside Valencia, Lille and Ajax, Chelsea knew reaching the Champions League knockout rounds was going to be tough. A 1-0 loss to Valencia at Stamford Bridge on matchday one made that abundantly clear.

To then be able to make it out in second place was a huge accomplishment for Chelsea, who achieved that with a squad lacking in Champions League experience. The group stage gave us that ridiculous 4-4 draw with Ajax which is up there with the best games the Bridge has seen in recent years. Goosebumps.

Unfortunately, the reward for that was a last-16 tie with Bayern Munich.

A pre-lockdown 3-0 loss was followed by a 4-1 post-lockdown loss, which looked bad on paper. Very bad. However, as we'd come to realise, conceding seven goals against Bayern over 180 minutes is actually somewhat of an accomplishment.


Best Player

A bit of a toughie here. For the first half of the season, this was Mateo Kovačić's award. 100%. However, as fatigue began to settle in, Mason Mount stole the spotlight.

When all was said and done, Mount just about deserves his name on Chelsea's Player of the Season award.

In what was his first season in the Premier League, the young Englishman made a whopping 53 appearances in all competitions, missing just two games all year, and finished with a fantastic return of eight goals and six assists.

His versatility, work rate and end product helped him shake off accusations that he was Lampard's favourite son (a tag which crippled Jorginho in his time under Maurizio Sarri), and he soon became a core part of the furniture. Without Mount, Chelsea had a habit of looking really, really bad.

The best part about this is that this is just the start. Mount is 21 years old. The future is bright.


Worst Player

Do we even need to do this one? Can't we just move on and spare ourselves from the horrible memories?

No? We've got to do it? Fine.

Kepa Arrizabalaga. There. There you go. Happy?

The world's most expensive goalkeeper may well have played his way out the exit door at the Bridge, posting historically atrocious statistics which ultimately saw him benched for the oldest man on the planet, Willy Caballero.

The only reason he didn't set the record for most goals conceded by a Chelsea goalkeeper in a single season is because he wasn't actually good enough to reach the end of the campaign.


The Manager

Despite what rival fans want you to believe, this was a good season for Lampard. He helped bridge the infamous gap between academy and first team and introduced a brand of football which was more than just relying on Eden Hazard to be good at the sport.

He helped generate excitement at the Bridge and led Chelsea to the Champions League, and he did so by playing an enthralling brand of football that promises to be stunning once perfected.

However, let's not pretend like it was perfect.

Tactically, Lampard still has work to do. His poor defensive work exposed the Blues' back line and made each individual mistake (of which there were plenty) infinitely worse than it should have been. Even during games, he sometimes made the wrong substitutions or showed a stubbornness to change his tactic which ultimately proved costly.

Fortunately, Lampard is an intelligent guy. He'll know all of this already, and nobody will want to sort it out more than him. Time is the key.


Overall Grade

If you offered Chelsea a spot in the top four, the FA Cup final and the Champions League last 16 at the start of the season, fans would have bitten your hand off. The Blues were never supposed to be that good.

The year-long defensive disasterclass added an ugly, yet intriguing dynamic to the season and means that the campaign cannot be viewed as perfect, but Chelsea exceeded expectations in 2019/20, and that's a win.

Overall Grade: B+


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Source : 90min