My Thoughts: Not getting enough praise, ill-discipline & player ratings

My view on the victory v Brighton..........

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gents,

This is my thoughts/review/opinions on yesterdays victory v Brighton yesterday.

Game Overview;

The first 5 minutes or so Brighton started quickly and I thought we looked sluggish and off the pace, at that point I was fearing what could happen. But pretty quickly we turned the switch and started keeping the ball and sustaining some pressure, we got Raheem Sterling in behind Hinshelwood on a couple of occasions and won some corners.

It seemed to me that we noticed very quickly that Sterling had the beating of his man in behind and we targeted that area, the corners from Gallagher were clearly routine and deep, each of the first 4/5 went beyond the far post. Badiashile did incredibly well to keep possession of one of the deep corners and then hook it back over his head for Fernandez to head home was genius! For Colwill’s goal it was another deep corner which Jackson did well to head back across the face of goal and Colwill after trying to beat Enzo to the header for his goal managed to win that header and score his first Chelsea goal!

After the second goal, I thought we looked cool, calm and collected and Brighton struggled to open us up, as the first half went on a feeling of complacency crept into our game and some loose passes were made and some little mistakes were there to be seen, although you cannot take anything away from the Brighton lad for his goal, an excellent finish.

The last few minutes of the half were disastrous and when the ball broke to Gilmour and you saw Gallagher desperate to win the ball back there was only one thing going to happen and for the second week in a row we lost our captain for two yellow cards. Gallagher made 3 or 4 yellow card worthy challenges with probably 2 of them coming before his first booking, he is sometimes a little too eager to win the ball back BUT also that is what makes him the energetic final third defensive monster that he is. It wasn’t reckless or petulant it was just over-eagerness in my view. The most frustrating element is that I believe Thiago Silva intercepts the ball from Gilmour if Gallagher doesn’t make the foul. We really restricted Brighton for the final 8 mins of the first half.

On to the second half and at half time I was really fearing for what was going to happen and pleading that Poch would make a change at half-time to sure things up and protect the lead. Little did I expect us to be so defensively solid in the second half, Brighton had 8 shots on target from inside the box, but nothing to spectacular and all were routine for Sanchez, they created 0 clear cut chances in the 65 minutes we were down to 10-men.

I have seen people calling us “chaotic” which there was moments that seemed like that, BUT if any other “big club” did what we did in that second half they would be getting praised to the high heavens. Thiago Silva was immense and his reading of the game is just on another planet, Disasi and Badiashile were monsters, Colwill was his usual cool, calm and collected self and when Ian Maatsen came on at RWB I thought he was really good, it allowed Disasi to tuck in. We then had Disasi, Silva and Badiashile defending the width of the 6 yard box which worked perfectly.

The penalty was a brilliant counter attack from Sanchez to Sterling to Jackson to Mudryk, from a BRIGHTON corner that is really really good! Not many players in world football have the pace to win a penalty there. Jackson’s pass was slightly behind Mudryk, but he adjusted so well and then let his pace do the work.

Against Spurs, City & Brighton we have had completely different performances, BUT a few things have been clear to see through them all. The hunger and determination of the players, the way they stick together when things are difficult or against them (or even for them against Spurs) and the passion and fight we are seeing from the squad is something we haven’t seen for a fair few years. It is worlds away from the pathetic group we had last year and especially towards the end of last season.

Obviously the Newcastle performance was an anomaly in the middle of those but we need to forget that and move on.

Thoughts on Defence, Midfield and Attack;

I have already mentioned above my thoughts on the Defence and just to reiterate, they were all brilliant in the second half with Thiago Silva being the spearhead for that, a quick shoutout to Rob Sanchez who had his best game in a Chelsea shirt and apart from one lapse in concentration his ball playing was fairly decent.

The midfield were excellent and energetic, especially in the first half, Gallagher was a bit too worked up and energetic, Caicedo broke up play so well in the first half and read the game plan from Brighton to a tee, I couldn’t find the clips I wanted but there were 2/3 occasions in the first half an hour where Caicedo completely changed the direction of his movement to try and pre-empt the Brighton patterns of play and he won the ball to set us on the attack, he was really aggressive and energetic in the second half making some good fouls and some not so good fouls but overall he really impressed me with his reading of the game, something I have been waiting to see from him.

Enzo’s best game for a couple of months, he has looked visibly knackered over the last 6/8 weeks and that is to be expected with the travelling between the UK and Sotuh America for the international breaks and the fact he had started around 30 games in a row for us since joining, plus the small fact he has a newborn baby we will let him off for looking a little fatigued, HOWEVER yesterday he looked like the Enzo we know and love, take the goals aside, he was energetic, intelligent with the ball and some of his final 3rd passing was sensational, it was soo good to see him score and I thought him and Caicedo really stepped up (as did the whole team) when Gallagher got sent off.

Jackson has really adapted his game quite nicely in recent weeks, the first few weeks of the season he looked so sharp and constantly made runs in behind which worked to stretch teams, but the last 4/5 games he has started to change between doing that and being more of a link up striker, and to be able to do both is impressive, although he is far from a master at either styles YET! It was exactly what we needed yesterday and although he was quiet he did the simple things well and got himself an assist.

Sterling was in and out of the game, looking lively in the first half. Mudryk was a real thorn in the Brighton side, his tenacity is so impressive and although we need to accept that he will lose the ball quite often, he will occasionally turn nothing into something, like the penalty. The more confidence he gets, the more things like that will happen.

Player Ratings;

I have said what I thought on all of the players above so I wont comment any further on the players performances, will just give them my ratings.

Rob Sanchez - 7.5/10

Axel Disasi - 7/10

Thiago Silva - 9/10 (MOTM)

Benoit Badiashile - 7.5/10

Levi Colwill - 7.5/10

Moises Caicedo - 7/10

Enzo Fernandez - 8.5/10

Conor Gallagher - 4.5/10

Raheem Sterling - 6.5/10

Nico Jackson - 6.5/10

Mykhailo Mudryk - 7/10

Subs;

Cole Palmer - Retained the ball well - 6/10

Ian Maatsen - Defended well and handled Mitoma - 6.5/10

Armando Broja - wasn’t on for long enough or involved enough to rate - N/A

Please all give me your thoughts below and I hope you enjoyed reading this article!

Luke Rushbrook