At Chelsea, change is rarely far away, and this season has already carried the familiar sense of a team still taking shape. Saturday\u2019s draw at Stamford Bridge only reinforced that feeling. Against Hull City, a side whose lineup has also been heavily altered since their earlier FA Cup meeting with Chelsea, Xabi Alonso is still searching for his most reliable structure.<\/p>\n
Before the game, Alonso admitted the picture was not yet clear. \u201cWe are still in the early days to know what this team, for sure, is going to be,\u201d he said ahead of Chelsea\u2019s fourth Premier League fixture. After a chaotic 2-2 draw, the only obvious certainty was that the front three may be the least likely part of the side to change again.<\/p>\n
Set pieces remain one of the sharpest concerns. Chelsea used a deep defensive line on Hull corners, keeping several players high up the pitch and using the space to threaten on the break. That approach helped create Morgan Rogers\u2019s 18-second counter-attack goal in the first half. But the same logic worked against them when Hull attacked from the other side, with Mohamed Belloumi finishing after Chelsea failed to deal with the second ball.<\/p>\n
The broader issue is that Chelsea\u2019s set-piece record has already become a problem. They have now conceded three times from such situations in four league matches. Alonso did not hide his frustration. \u201cI don\u2019t like it,\u201d Alonso seethed.<\/p>\n
The match also underlined how willing Chelsea are to allow opponents more of the ball. Hull had only 32% possession, yet managed to create enough to leave Alonso with more questions than answers. Chelsea were outplayed in key moments, and their first-half defensive work was described by Alonso as \u201csoft.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tactically, there was another round of adjustment. Alonso again resisted the obvious solution of a major system change, instead using Malo Gusto, Reece James and Pedro Neto in unusual roles. The idea had logic, especially against a compact opponent, but it brought little penetration. Chelsea managed only three shots before half-time and trailed 2-1.<\/p>\n
Mois\u00e9s Caicedo\u2019s absence has clearly forced Alonso to think differently in midfield. Yet the front line has not needed the same level of experimentation, and that may be the one area he can finally leave alone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chelsea drew with Hull, but set pieces, possession and structure left Alonso facing more questions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19374,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,1710,172],"tags":[1836,1162,180],"class_list":["post-19375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-hull-city","category-epl","tag-2026-27-premier-league","tag-analytics","tag-player-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19375","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=19375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}