A lacklustre performance, and an embarrassing result. Chelsea 0-1 Nottingham Forest.
Chelsea continued a stop-start beginning to the season today with our second defeat already, this time to Nottingham Forest.
A game where yet again we ran into the same old problems, lack of quality in front of goal, wait to be punished via a mistake or counter-attack.
And that’s exactly what happened.
Let’s move into the player ratings…
Robert Sanchez –6
Not much to report on Sanchez today. The goal wasn’t strictly down to him, and he made a few decent claims from crosses. His distribution was patchy at times too, but certainly wasn’t a ‘problem’ today.
Malo Gusto – 7
I thought in a game of many average performances, Gusto was above that. He had a great first half offering support on the right hand side, and I’ll be brutally honest, I don’t understand why he was substituted.
Axel Disasi – 6
Much like Sanchez, nothing interesting to report on the performance of Disasi. Not much seemed to come down his side from what I thought of the game, and from what he did face (seven aerial duels) he won six of them. Faultless in that respect, and blameless in the result.
Thiago Silva – 5
Is it harsh? I’m not sure, but I’m at the end of my patience with Silva this season, largely due to the system we’re being forced to use just to accommodate his presence.
He was almost stood still for the goal, allowing the ball to be played through to Anthony Elanga, and, again he continued to be a cause of our play slowing down in the defensive third. We need to ditch this system, ASAP.
Levi Colwill – 6
Decent enough aerially, with three out of six long balls completed, I can’t say much to fault Colwill’s performance, but can’t praise it all too much either (maybe down to the result, and me struggling to find any real positivity with it).
I want to see him alongside Disasi after the break, with Maatsen as a left back in a 4, or just in a system that doesn’t expose him so much.
Ben Chilwell – 4
I don’t want to just ‘follow the crowd’ with the Chilwell criticism but today was a mess. This experiment, or way of playing that facilitates him being one of our highest players on the pitch has ran its course, because he isn’t good enough to play the role that’s required of him.
Losing the ball, fouling his man and then getting his yellow card just about summed up his day.
Moises Caicedo – 6
I saw some nice things from Caicedo today, offering support with build-up, some good turns to evade pressure and move us into the middle third, but he was half at fault for the goal, which we’ve lost because of. He’ll get better, we all know that, but just a frustrating mistake today.
Conor Gallagher – 6
The other half of the error that led to goal, and I put it down to inexperience.
Dummying the ball and vacating the area, and not being near enough for Caicedo’s loose touch/pass was criminal, but I didn’t think Gallagher was overly poor today, yet, he still doesn’t make it into a team in our ‘best system’ for me (if we ever do see a new system…)
Enzo Fernandez – 7
Chelsea’s best player (again). I’m fed up of saying that those around him have let him down, but today it happened again.
He ticks the game over so well and always is a catalyst for us to progress up the pitch. We’re so fortunate to have him play for us, and we, yet again, were so much worse than what someone like him deserves.
Raheem Sterling – 6
Back to the same old issues with him today I thought. Lack of decision making and no real directness with his dribbling unlike the previous few games. Sterling struggles against teams who set up with a really solid low-block, and today was another example of that.
Nicolas Jackson – 5
His poorest game yet in a Chelsea shirt that was topped off by a horrendous miss. Jackson struggled to make much of am impact today, and his poor afternoon in front of goal probably highlighted this a little more than what normally would happen.
Noni Madueke – 6
Hardly impactful, but no blame given. I can’t give Noni or Palmer an ‘N/A’ as they had the time to make more of an impression/impact, but it can’t be easy coming on, a goal down against a solid block, so no blame from me.
Cole Palmer – 6
Same as Noni all in all, not overly impactful but a nice few touches here and there. Excited to see him with more minutes under his belt, maybe as a 10 as well?
Ian Maatsen – N/A
No real time to change anything.
Mykhailo Mudryk – N/A
Same as above.
Mauricio Pochettino – 4
Shocking is all I can say and I don’t think it’s unfair either. I could understand to a degree why we stuck with the system, but the lack of initiative or flexibility shown was worrying.
No changes at half-time frustrated me, and likely many, especially after seeing how we played. I didn’t agree with all of the changes either, so not a great day for our head coach.
We have two weeks to work now on changing our approach. If the system doesn’t change though, uncomfortable conversations are to be had.
We go again in two weeks time…
