This is the most surprising result of the weekend by a mile. Chelsea absolutely imploded as Leeds United scored THREE past them and handed the Blues their first loss of the Premier League season.
What happened to Chelsea today? They were the clear frontrunners against Leeds and had a lot of momentum coming into this game with their dramatic 2-2 draw against Spurs a week ago. Sure, Thomas Tuchel was not available to give touch-line instructions as he was banned for this match, but that shouldn’t be a reason for this level of ineptitude by the Blues.
Chelsea looked like relegation fodder while Leeds played as though they had a chance at the title. That’s how bad Chelsea were today.
Still, if it wasn’t for Edouard Mendy, Chelsea might have been able to get away with this one. Up until Mendy’s horrible mistake (and I really mean horrible; it was that bad) that Leeds’ new signing Brendan Aaronson pounced on, Chelsea had more chances and control over the game.
Raheem Sterling scored an offside goal and Ruben Loftus-Cheek for some reason decided not to shoot the ball on a one-vs-one inside the penalty box. I know Loftus-Cheek is liked by a lot of the Chelsea fans, but he’s not good enough at this level.
I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen him miss a great chance, misplace a pass, or try to dribble between four players when I’m watching Chelsea, and I don’t even watch Chelsea that much. He played one good season back in 18/19 with Chelsea, but his level of talent belongs on a mid-table team.
Nevertheless, like I said, Mendy’s horror-show dribbling attempt gave Leeds the lead in the 32′ and the Whites didn’t look back. Well, I should also mention that Chelsea lost their heads during Leeds surge as only 3 minutes later, Raheem Sterling’s foul led to Rodrigo scoring a wonderful header.
The delivery from Jack Harrison from the edge of the box was fantastic and Rodrigo’s header was even better as he outjumped Reece James by the near post to flick the ball past Mendy. After having a horrible season last year, that goal gave Rodrigo his fourth of the season and he now leads the Premier League scoring chart.
Obviously, he won’t stay up there for long, but his new-found form may be the spark that saves Leeds from another relegation-threatened season. Plus, he might just be able to replace the production Raphinha took with him when he was sold to Barcelona.
Anyway, back to the game, Chelsea took charge of ball possession after the second goal but did nothing with it. Marc Cucurella missed a chance (which he probably should have scored on) right before half-time, but that was pretty much it from Chelsea’s attack. They really were bad today.
Jack Harrison added a third around the 70′ mark to put the game further out of Chelsea’s reach, though the Blues own Kalidou Koulibaly sealed Leeds victory when he got his second yellow card.
After already being booked, he committed the most obvious foul the English Premier League has probably ever seen by pulling Joe Gelhardt down away from the play. The referee would have had to ben legitimately blind to miss the foul, and he wasn’t as he sent Koulibaly off immediately. What was he thinking?
Nonetheless, this win was massive for Leeds United as they now have 7 points from 3 games, sit 3rd in the Premier League, and are well above their relegation rivals. As for Chelsea, this loss has now put them 5 points behind Arsenal, and 2 points behind Manchester City and Tottenham. Still, it’s very early, so there’s no reason to panic just yet Chelsea fans.
But that doesn’t mean Thomas Tuchel has a lot of work to do on this team for Chelesea’s next game against Leicester City.
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