Can anyone keep pace with Chelsea’s points machine?
Chelsea have 82 points from 29 games, 11.1 more than their chances suggest, and their finishing is doing most of the damage.
11.1 points above expected: Chelsea are not merely leading the English Premier Division, they are making a mockery of the chances they have created and allowed.
Calin Dimario’s side have 82 points from 29 games against an expected 70.9.
The biggest explanation is at the sharp end. Chelsea have scored 97 goals from chances worth 74.9 xG: 22.1 more than expected. That is finishing with the gloves off. Their defending has helped too, if less spectacularly: opponents have scored 14 from 16.5 xG, leaving Chelsea 2.5 goals better off than the chances conceded would suggest.
You can call that clinical, fortunate, or a bit of both. From the terraces, it looks like the sort of season when the ball keeps finding the net and the points keep piling up. But the numbers are not a promise that this pace will hold; they are a reminder of how much Chelsea have already made of what games offered them.
The title run is still going: Chelsea won the English Premier Division in 2062/63, their 41st straight championship. Their extraordinary conversion rate is helping keep that streak alive, while the expected-points table says the chasers have had far less to show for their chances.
Chelsea travel to Olympique Lyonnais for a Champions League Last 16 first leg on 11 March, too. For now, though, 82 points tell the story: Chelsea are first, and they have been ruthless enough to make the gap look even bigger than the table says.