Chelsea plagued by familiar problems in Graham Potter's debut as Blues drop more Champions League points
CBSN
On his first match in charge Potter saw Chelsea fail to translate territory and possession into shots and goals
Spare a thought for Thomas Tuchel if he was watching his old flame with their new beau. Loads of possession, elegant build-up, plenty of width but not the shots and goals to reflect all that? He had been delivering that for months on end at Stamford Bridge.
And so Graham Potter's first game in charge concluded rather as Tuchel's last act had with a late barrage of shots not enough to save a day where Chelsea failed to make hay when the sun shone. A 1-1 home draw with Red Bull Salzburg to follow the loss at Dinamo Zagreb. It will be a while yet before the new manager can think about matching his predecessor's Champions League success in his first year. For now, he has to think about getting out of the group.
To do so he needs to address the issues that bedeviled Tuchel from day one to the end of his Chelsea regime. For all the stars that Chelsea can deploy in their attack, they make extremely heavy work of getting good shots away at goal. Not until Hakim Ziyech volleyed straight at goal in the third minute of added time did the hosts better Salzburg's tally of three shots on target. In the first half, the hosts completed more than three times the number of passes of the Austrian ide, Reece James and Raheem Sterling alone had one fewer touch in the attacking third than Salzburg's 54. They turned all that dominance into zero shots on target and 0.55 expected goals (xG).