Chelsea were comprehensively beaten 3-0 by Brighton & Hove Albion, a result that deepened an already alarming run of form and further damaged any realistic hopes of Champions League qualification this season. Brighton opened the scoring early and Jack Hinshelwood doubled the lead before Danny Welbeck added a stoppage-time third to complete the scoreline.<\/p>\n
Liam Rosenior selected a cautious starting XI that included five natural defenders and two defensive midfielders after injuries to Jo\u00e3o Pedro and Cole Palmer limited attacking options. The conservative set-up failed to offer the intended defensive solidity, with Brighton finding the net inside three minutes and threatening even earlier. Brighton produced 1.31 xG in the first 20 minutes, the second-highest total in that timeframe this Premier League season, and had six total shots by the 20-minute mark, four on target and two clear big chances missed.<\/p>\n
Chelsea managed an xG of 0.04 from one blocked shot in the first half, a figure described in the match report as generous. Match statistics list Brighton with 2.17 expected goals and Chelsea with 0.38, possession at 54% to 46% and total shots 15 to 6 in Brighton\u2019s favour. The Blues have now failed to score in five consecutive Premier League matches and have not kept a clean sheet in 12 league games in a row. The defeat leaves Chelsea overtaken by Brighton in the standings and with the possibility of dropping out of the top 10 by their next league fixture.<\/p>\n
Individual displays were mixed but generally poor. Robert S\u00e1nchez (6.4) made an important early save but produced distribution described as terrible and committed an error averted only by Trevoh Chalobah\u2019s goal-line clearance. Wesley Fofana (6.5) was substituted at half time after a difficult opening spell. Alejandro Garnacho (5.6) squandered chances after coming on at the interval, while substitutes D\u00e1rio Essugo (6.0) and Marc Guiu (6.4) did little to alter the outcome.<\/p>\n
The performance was judged by the report as one of the worst under the BlueCo ownership era, and Rosenior\u2019s position on Chelsea\u2019s touchline was described as potentially precarious if results do not improve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chelsea were beaten 3-0 by Brighton, extending a worrying run that threatens their season. Low form.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12563,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[773,190],"tags":[1505,1162,1047],"class_list":["post-12564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brighton-hove-albion","category-chelsea","tag-accountability","tag-analytics","tag-champions-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}