The pre-season friendlies for Chelsea for 2012-2013 season are over provided you don’t consider FA Community shield as a pre-season friendly. The Blues played 5: Won 1, Drawn 1, Lost 3. The actual results are shown below:

The picture does not seemingly look nice. After giving allowance for the players involved in Euro 2012, London Olympics, the reactions among Chelsea fans were mixed. On the one hand there are many in WAGNH who have expressed their unhappiness / displeasure / anger in the way we have played and on the other hand we have Graham & co trying to tell (multiple times) that the goal for preseason is the gaining of fitness and avoidance of serious injury. This divergence of thought set me thinking and I went back to data for the last five seasons, looked at our performance in the pre-season friendlies and tried to find out if any statistical relationship existed between performance during the pre -season friendlies and the number of trophies won during the season. The results are interesting.

Performance during Pre-season (2007-2008 season till now)

The results of the pre-season friendlies for each of the past five seasons are given below. Along with the results, how Chelsea performed during the season in the Premier league, Champions league, FA cup, League Cup and FA Community shield wherever applicable along with the actual trophy count for the year is mentioned.

A. 2007-2008 Season

Matches with Results:

Performance in the season

B. 2008-2009 Season:

Matches with Results

Performance in the season

C. 2009-2010 season:

Matches with Results

Performance in the season

D. 2010-2011 season

Matches with Results:

Performance in the season

E. 2011-2012 season

Matches with Results:

Performance in the season

Summary

In the below table I have tried to put together the summary data regarding Win % in Pre-season games and the trophies won during the season.

· A win% above 80% in three of the five seasons has resulted in additions to the trophy cabinet

· This pre-season results are identical to the 2010-2011 pre-season and that year we ended with Zero trophies.

· A good pre-season win% tends to have a positive correlation with the end of season trophy haul notwithstanding the many pangs suffered during the season like stuttering form, change of manager and appointment of interim / caretaker managers.

I am fully aware of the low sample size (only 5 preseasons) and also the multiple variables / dynamics to be included and hence will stop here at my attempt to find more insight. I leave it to the readers to interpret the data based on their lines of thinking.

Caution / Disclaimer / Conclusion:

Fans should not read too much into these data. Statistics can be twisted to prove / support different arguments. If the goal of pre-season is to regain fitness and avoid any injuries then Chelsea has definitely succeeded in that aspect. Also this pre-season had limited participation from EURO 2012 players, No participation from the Olympic tournament players (OSCAR , MATA) and more importantly the transfer market is not closed yet. There could be few more quality signings before the transfer window closes and let’s not forget we signed MATA in the last week of August.

The more important use of this article I feel is for the fans to get at one place all the results of our pre-season matches over the past five seasons. PERIOD.