Whereas it could be Valentine’s Day, Chelsea duo Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo proved towards Brighton that they don’t seem to be a match made in heaven.
You’ll count on two £100m footballers to be excellent at soccer, wouldn’t you? Nicely, Friday’s Premier League defeat was additional proof that Caicedo and Fernandez are miles off justifying their big switch charges and that Romeo Lavia is a giant miss within the Chelsea midfield.
Lavia made 10 Premier League matchday squads in a row throughout the Blues’ finest interval of the season, enjoying in eight of them, serving to to encourage wins over Brighton, Newcastle United, Aston Villa and Tottenham. The younger Belgian’s harm issues usually are not going away after solely enjoying 32 minutes in 2023/24 and the distinction in midfield when he performs over Fernandez is evening and day.
Fernandez and particularly Caicedo have improved this season however they continue to be overhyped for the value Chelsea paid. Not for the primary time this season, they had been outshone by an opposition midfielder, who was capable of beat the £200m pair by himself.
Carlos Baleba stood out for Brighton of their emphatic 3-0 win on the Amex. He was clearly the perfect central midfielder on the pitch, successful a few tackles whereas making 4 interceptions and 5 clearances. He was not that spectacular on the ball however his defensive output was good, because the numbers present.
The Cameroon worldwide was essential in a totally totally different recreation plan to Chelsea’s, so comparisons to Caicedo and Fernandez will be deemed barely unfair given the Brighton man was primarily instructed to play a distinct sport.
The Chelsea duo couldn’t do something significant in possession, seemed terrible in transition and defensively on the whole, committing 4 fouls between them and each choosing up a yellow card.
Fabian Hurzeler deserves credit score for an ideal recreation plan and for utilizing Baleba precisely how he ought to. The promising younger coach was more than pleased for Chelsea to move it round pointlessly and ensured Cole Palmer was saved quiet all evening, whereas his staff had been devastating on the counter.
It’s in the end all the way down to the gamers to implement the sport plan and get the outcome their head coach has choreographed, however a pleasant little bit of particular person high quality goes a good distance as nicely.
As Chelsea dominated possession with out threatening in any respect, Brighton had been ruthless and went forward via one of many nicest objectives you will notice all season.
Kaoru Mitoma – who was named man of the match – scored a aim described as “pure genius” by Jamie Carragher on co-commentary. That was not an overstatement. The lengthy ball from Bart Verbruggen emphasised Brighton’s totally different strategy to Chelsea’s and Mitoma’s first contact was world class, his second put Trevoh Chalobah in a spin cycle and his final was too exact for Filip Jorgensen.
It was a novel aim and can go down as among the finest this season. Brighton were bold to rebuff Saudi Arabian approaches for Mitoma in January however that just about justified it.
Loads of the discuss going into this recreation was about Chelsea’s accidents and the way their assault would look. Christopher Nkunku began via the center with Nicolas Jackson out and was embarrassingly ineffective. Usually, Noni Madueke was substituted with an harm within the twentieth minute. Jadon Sancho was his substitute and was unable to redeem himself after a stinker on the same pitch last weekend.
Brighton’s attackers made the distinction on the evening as Mitoma opened the scoring and Yankuba Minteh bagged a brace.
Minteh’s first had its fortune however his second and Brighton’s third was pure class. He despatched ex-Brighton boy Marc Cucurella – who was booed all night – for a hotdog earlier than smashing the ball previous an unconvincing Jorgensen.
We will’t speak about that aim with out mentioning the position Levi Colwill performed in it, although. The Chelsea centre-back went down simply and sat on the ground claiming for a foul that by no means ought to be given, obtained up and trotted again into place because the hole he left was uncovered by Minteh. Not a great look.
Accidents can’t be an excuse when a participant is doing that and a £200m pivot is being fully outplayed by a £22m midfielder on the opposite staff.
One place Enzo Maresca has loads of choices is goalkeeper. The Chelsea boss answered questions over Robert Sanchez by declaring Jorgensen as his first-choice goalkeeper, and while we called for that to happen after Sanchez’s mistake against Wolves, it seems like Jorgensen is just not the reply, with one other summer time of looking for a No. 1 on the playing cards.
Jorgensen’s distribution seemed dodgy at finest on an terrible evening for Maresca and his blue billion pound bottlejobs.
The Chelsea followers weren’t feeling the love after the full-time whistle – whether or not they had been nonetheless within the stadium to berate the gamers or already midway house.
Each away participant had an terrible evening however the criticism will extra typically or not be directed in direction of the costlier gamers, particularly if an opposition participant in the identical place is arguably the perfect participant on the pitch.
Baleba gave Caicedo and Fernandez a midfield lesson and the earlier Lavia returns for Chelsea, the higher.
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