Photo by Athena Pictures/Getty Images

As referee Jonathan Moss blew his whistle to signal the end of the match between Chelsea and Crystal Palace in Saturday’s early kick-off, a lot of Chelsea fans would have been ecstatic to see another win recorded, and all 3 points go into the bag for the team. It is now 11 wins in a row for Chelsea, and we now sit 9 points clear at the top of the EPL— unless our other title rivals win tomorrow. But while we revel in our success, I think it is also necessary that we talk about our late struggles.

In the past 3 games, Chelsea have recorded 1-0 wins. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with that, especially since we did get the victory and vital points, but it does call for some concern when you check the stats from those games. In all of our last 3 games, we have struggled to create and score goals. Against West Brom, we couldn’t muster up a single shot on target until Diego Costa’s stunning strike late in the second half. Against Sunderland, we created a few chances, but couldn’t get enough of them on target. On Saturday, against Crystal Palace, we suffered the same problem— no real chance on goal, until Diego Costa headed in from close range. After that, the chances seemed to dry up till the latter part of the second-half. What make this all the more disturbing is that we were a scoring side. We scored a lot of goals before the last 3 games, so what has gone wrong? It certainly isn’t Costa because the man has been magnificent. And Conte too has noticed this issue, which is the reason he’s been using Fabregas a lot of late, I believe.

Teams have found a way to sit deep and frustrate our attack, but we need to rediscover our scoring touch if we must continue to win games. We need to create more, and score more too. Other players need to step up to the responsibility too because it would seem we’re becoming over-reliant on Costa. He won’t be playing in our next fixture, so there isn’t a better time for our other players to step up than now. Winning is all that matters in the sport, but in a league like this, and a season like the current one, it may do you a lot of good to score as many goals as you can.

Whatever the challenge is, I am confident that Conte and his boys will dig deep, and turn it on its head. At the moment, we’re winning, and that is a lot, but I really hope we go back to creating and scoring more goals soon.