They’re lucky they have 39 PTS, or else I’d pick them to be relegation favorites. Chelsea have lost AGAIN as Brighton utterly played them off the Stamford Bridge Park in a 2-1 route, leaving Frank Lampard winless in his first three matches.
This team is seriously in jeopardy of getting sucked into the bottom-5 of the Premier League if things don’t change EXTREMELY FAST!
As everyone has probably noticed, Chelsea have lost their unfathomable 12th game of the Premier League campaign (it’s a lot more in all competitions) as Brighton, who Chelsea raided for their now-former manager Graham Potter just 6 months ago, came into Stamford Bridge and completely bossed the game from the first minute to the 97th minute. And I mean DOMINATED Chelsea!
Not only did Brighton, a team with a 50th of the budget and value of the Blues, outscore Chelsea 2-1 at Stamford Bridge (which should be shocking in its own right), but they also outshot them (26 vs. 8), outshot them with shots on target (10 vs. 2), out-possessed them (58% vs. 42%), out-passed them (554 vs. 404), had a better passing accuracy (85% vs. 81%), and had more corners (8 vs. 2).
Even though Chelsea went ahead first though Connor Gallagher’s deflected-goal, Moises Caicedo and Pascal Gross completely bossed the midfield, despite coming up against a three-man Chelsea unit of Enzo Fernandez, Connor Gallagher, and Denis Zakaria, Solly March, Alexis Mac Allister, and Kaoru Mitoma (especially Mitoma as he was DESTROYING Ben Chilwell and Trevoh Chalobah on the flanks) ran wild in behind the Chelsea defense, and Evan Ferguson was lethal up top before going off with an injury.
And, with Julio Enciso and Danny Welbeck coming in for the injured Ferguson, the Brighton attack stopped being nice and put Chelsea to the sword with Danny Welbeck heading home a cross to level the game, while Enciso scored an absolute beauty of a goal in the 68th minute to seal Brighton’s record-breaking (well, more like record-adding) 14th Premier League win of the season.
Roberto De Zerbi is truly a genius as he’s transformed the really good, competent Brighton side Graham Potter cultivated for the last 4 years into an elite, free-flowing European contender that can challenge even the best of the best in the Premier League.
Oh, before I forget, the Brighton backline of Robert Sanchez, Joel Veltman, Lewis Dunk, Adam Webster, Pervais Estupinan obviously shut out the Chelsea attack as that deflected goal was sheer bad luck. Chelsea had Raheem Sterling, Christian Pulisic, and Mykhailo Mudryk starting up front after all!
Now, let’s still not forget that this is Chelsea, who spent over £600M pounds on transfers just this season, playing against Brighton, a team that had a net transfer spend of -£82.17M (yeah, Brighton actually earned profit from their transfers) this past season, AT HOME!
Again, this is a Chelsea team that has finished within the Champions League places four straight seasons (2018/19-2021/22), reached three straight FA Cup Finals (2019/20-2021/22), reached the Carabao Cup Final last year, won the 2019 Europa League, and won the 2021 Champions League.
This isn’t some yo-yo team, such as Fulham, Norwich, and West Brom, getting bounced from the Premier League the very next season after entering it from the EFL Championship. This is Chelsea FC, and it’s getting beaten 12 times in a single Premier League campaign, has won just 10 Premier League games, and is going to be knocked out of all competitions (there’s no way they’re beating Real Madrid being down 2-0) before the end of April.
I would say that it’s astonishing or crazy or wild or weird or some expressive adjective that gets my shock across, but I’m not shocked anymore. I’m really, really worried for this Chelsea side.
Funnily enough, the early season points under Thomas Tuchel (10 PTS) and the brief purple patch in the eight games immediately after Graham Potter took charge of the club (11 PTS) is the only thing actually saving them from being relegation fodder. Seriously.
They’ve picked up just 28 points over their last 20 Premier League matches (app. 1.8 PTS/match), while the club has also already dropped out of FA Cup, Carabao Cup, and is on the precipice of crashing out of the Champions League after getting humiliated 2-0 by Real Madrid in the Santiago Bernadeau. I’ve never seen a club fall off so dramatically after spending so much money in a single season.
I know Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea finished 10th in 2015/16, which was the worst Premier League title defense in the competition’s history until Leicester City’s defense the following year, but that year just felt totally different than this one as controversies, toxicity, and in-fighting derailed their campaign. The team wasn’t awful as this one is.
I’m sure a new manager next season will fix a lot of the errors we’re seeing under Lampard and Potter before him, but this year is looking like it will be the worst ever Premier League finish in Chelsea history if the results continue to go as they have under Lampard so far.
I can’t believe I’m writing that for Chelsea in 2023.
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