Chelsea 0-1 Nottingham Forest (Elanga 48′)
STAMFORD BRIDGE — After an oh-so-brief reprieve, Chelsea‘s on-pitch misery and abject underperformance returned with a vengeance.
Having beaten Luton and Wimbledon, two sides which played each other in the National League 13 years ago, the Mauricio Pochettino Project was supposed to have caught light.
Yet while attempting to shield themselves from a piercingly powerful September sun, the Billionaire Blues Club fell victim to just Nottingham Forest’s second Premier League away win this century.
Pochettino named an unchanged line-up from Chelsea’s last league game, something neither Thomas Tuchel, Graham Potter nor Frank Lampard managed all last season. There’s a fair argument that, bar captain Reece James’ absence, this is the strongest line-up the Argentine has at his disposal, regardless of injuries.
Yet as any statistician will tell you, twice is not enough to make a pattern. It was this unsurprising lack of consistency and familiarity which allowed Antony Elanga to stroll towards the Matthew Harding Stand and deftly dab his finish into the bottom right corner.
Well, more specifically, it was a gawkishly heavy touch from Moises Caicedo which put the move in motion. Taiwo Awoniyi collected the ball from Caicedo and Conor Gallagher, who were pressed into a cheap error barely excusable from a £1.15m player, let alone one 100 times that. Awoniyi, on a seven-game league scoring streak himself, smoothly found Elanga, who in turn found the back of the net with infinite ease.
For Forest, this was the result they both wanted and deserved after two imposing away performances at Arsenal and Man Utd already this season. They only retained their Premier League place by virtue of their exceptional City Ground record, yet Steve Cooper looks to have resolved that issue over the summer.
Elanga’s goal should also have allayed Forest fears over Brennan Johnson’s £50m departure to Spurs. The ex-Man Utd forward’s relentlessly intelligent running bamboozled Chelsea’s defence in his 45-minute star turn, showing a natural kinesis with Awoniyi and Morgan Gibbs-White.
For Chelsea’s smorgasbord of summer additions, this was a bleak reminder of how far there is left to go. Nicolas Jackson, having scored his first Premier League goal against Luton, was booked for cheap protests in the first half, before flicking the ball over the crossbar from less than six yards out seven minutes from time.
Caicedo, the best player on the pitch in dispatches, will only be remembered for his Elanga pre-assist. Cole Palmer, coming on less than 36 hours after officially signing, had barely had time to learn his teammates names.
It was not that Chelsea didn’t create chances, as Jackson’s late miss demonstrated. Midway through the first half, Raheem Sterling, quieter than he has been but still the brightest outlet, found Ben Chilwell free in the box.
After his bizarre decision to pass when clean through against Luton, you may have assumed Chilwell had been practicing his finishing, but if he had it wasn’t on show here. His weak-footed mis-kick should have fooled Matt Turner, but instead rolled into the advertising hoardings.
Forest last beat Chelsea in 1997, and last won at Stamford Bridge two years earlier. Both sides have spent heavily and bought relentlessly in the past year, but there was only evidence it had worked for one of them.
Pochettino’s side took 21 shots, but only two of them finding the target showed most came from desperate speculation rather than tactical genius coming to fruition.
Throughout the game, Forest fans took great glee in chanting “What a waste of money” at Chelsea’s dysfunctional horde of overpriced underachievers, sometimes picking a specific target, other times not needing to.
With a lot of problems to fix and little time to fix them, it is not impossible the Stamford Bridge faithful choose to adopt that chant as their own sooner rather than later.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/MeFO7NX
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