Frank Lampard out for 2 weeks, missing the big London Derby against Arsenal this weekend. The question – is how this will impact Chelsea?
It’s a hard one to answer with Lampard having an attendance record that would make the school swot Cuthbert Cringeworthy green with envy. Still, there are some interesting statistics available from the 29 games he’s missed since 2005.
Using stats tools from http://www.bettorlogic.com/ we can put some actual numbers on the board.
Since 2005, Chelsea have won 69% of their games with an average of 2.26 points per game.
Here’s the split for when Lamps is playing/ not playing:
Lamps played: Chelsea win 70% of games with an average of 2.29 points per game.
Lamps not played: Chelsea win 62% of games with an average of 2.10 points per game.
So Chelsea are indeed slightly worse off without Lampard; their win rate and average points per game drops without him.
Some of the absences above might have been when Lampard was rested against lesser opposition, so what if we isolate Chelsea’s record against top half teams only?
Now we get:
Lamps played: Chelsea win 68% of games with an average of 2.20 points per game.
Lamps not played: Chelsea win 38% of games with an average of 1.54 points per game.
Lampard missed just 13 of these 92 games but it still gives you an idea of his impact.
Overall the stats show that Chelsea are unlikely to fall to pieces without Lamps this weekend, but I’d want more than the 1.78 on offer for a Chelsea win against Arsenal, even after last week’s shock defeat to West Brom. Arsenal had 12 shots on target to the Baggies’ 5 in that game and Chelsea have just a 50% win rate against top 4 teams since 2005. I’d be looking for a price nearer 2.0 on the Chelsea win.
Dan Jones