Some Chelsea fans are calling for Reece James to be sold - I've seen the stats which shatter the argument

How long has it been since we last saw the real Reece James? After all those injuries, all those twanged hamstrings and knocked knees, is the player who established himself as Chelsea’s first-choice right-back still in there?

It’s not just a philosophical question at this stage – after yet another injury setback kept him out of Saturday’s 2-1 win over Leicester City, there are murmurs in the stands at Stamford Bridge suggesting that perhaps James should be the next home-grown sacrifice laid upon the altar of the financial fair play rules. After all, to borrow a cliché from American sports, the best ability a player can possess is availability.

It’s not so long ago that James looked like one of the best all-round right-backs in the global game, as solid in defence as he was dangerous in the final third, a package all tied together by the speed and endurance to get up and down the flank all game long without losing a step. Now, there’s a very reasonable debate about whether all those knocks and lay-offs have raddled his body to the point where moving on from him is the best move.

The 24-year-old – yes, he is still just 24, for all that it feels as though he has spent more time on the treatment table than most players have spent on the pitch across their entire career – has managed just four appearances this season, one of which was really just a cameo at the end of the 1-1 draw with Arsenal.

There was a good outing against Newcastle United, when he made a crucial goal-line clearance and generally looked more or less like his old self – but otherwise he has looked rather like just another full-back, a replaceable part in Enzo Maresca’s machine.

If he can’t get on the pitch all season and the medical team see little sign of forward progress, then the only issue with selling him would be finding a buyer foolish enough to take on a player who can’t physically do his job. If he comes back from his latest twang and shows no ill-effects, then he will give Maresca and (perhaps more pertinently) Behdad Eghbali the data they need to make a decision. The problem is that there is a very good chance that we end up somewhere in the middle – some games here and there, a few scares and strains, and a fair amount of rest and recuperation, and a big decision may end up being made without enough information next summer.

We can at least get some clues in the meantime. James hasn’t exactly aced the eye test in the last few games, but the stats that he’s had time to put up can at least help to answer a key question – after all the injuries, has James started to regress from his best performances?

To help provide an answer, I went through several key statistical markers and compared James’ numbers from the last two seasons before the injuries really started mounting (2020/21 and 2021/22) and his output from the last two seasons, to see if there were significant differences or any areas in which he had been struggling compared to his ‘prime’, or indeed any areas in which he may have actually improved:

There are, of course, a lot of caveats with comparing data this way. Most importantly, since the start of the 2023/24 season, James has only started eight Premier League matches and played a handful of times in other competitions, so the sample size is really too small to draw firm conclusions from. A couple of especially good or bad games would tilt the numbers significantly, and where you see significant variation that may be the cause rather than a major regression.

These do, however, help to highlight places in which biases picked up from the eye test may prove to be inaccurate. For instance, a lot of fans may remember the James of old as more dangerous and dynamic going forward into the opposing third than he is now, but he’s been setting goals up at a very similar rate. 10 in one season sounds a lot better than the two he’s managed since August 2023, but minute for minute, it’s actually a little better. If he has slowed down physically, then he may have adapted his game in other ways to compensate, but either way, whatever he’s doing still seems to work.

The broad picture suggests that James has ultimately been performing at a very similar level to that which he was a few years ago when he was on top of the world. A notable drop in his ability to get past defenders may be due to those injuries and rustiness, or it may perhaps be a statistical anomaly, but it’s the only area of his game which appears, at first glance, to have become much worse.

Raw data can’t tell us everything, of course – for instance, it doesn’t tell us the extent to which all those hamstring strains may have impacted his speed and endurance. What the numbers imply, however, is that a healthy James would still be an exceptional player, and it may be worth persisting with him through a very tough time for him in terms of his health.

If James can get back to full fitness and to a point at which he can play week in, week out, then there is evidence that he can still be the first-rate all-round wing-back we saw in 2021. Of course, if the physios don’t believe that playing 90 minutes every week is a realistic prospect, then that’s another matter, but for now at least, Maresca seems to be right to be willing to give him a chance – and Chelsea would be right to hold on to him.