Chelsea\u2019s decision to go without a natural centre forward in place of the injured Jo\u00e3o Pedro was punished once more, as they were subdued in a 1-0 defeat away to Sunderland on Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Xabi Alonso\u2019s approach again left Chelsea short of penetration, with Sunderland doing enough to keep the visitors at arm\u2019s length and expose the same attacking problem that has followed them for several matches. Brian Brobbey offered the clearest contrast between the sides, using his physical presence to win the penalty that Enzo Le F\u00e9e turned into the game\u2019s only goal. It was a narrow margin, but one that felt deserved in the balance of play.<\/p>\n
For Chelsea, the absence of Jo\u00e3o Pedro continued to cast a heavy shadow. Their leading scorer this season missed his fourth Premier League appearance of the campaign, and the result was another afternoon of limited threat in the final third. Even before this defeat, Chelsea had already been stifled by Brentford and Tottenham Hotspur without their regular No. 9. The one exception came in last weekend\u2019s win over Manchester United, a match in which Chelsea were helped more than they were inspired.<\/p>\n
Sunderland arrived with their own concerns, sitting bottom of the Premier League table after conceding 17 goals in their first nine league games of the season. Yet R\u00e9gis Le Bris had set the tone beforehand: \u201cWe need to be pragmatic first,\u201d as R\u00e9gis Le Bris had warned prematch, \u201cbecause it is clear if you concede goals it is more difficult to win the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chelsea\u2019s issue without Pedro is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Alonso has tried Morgan Rogers, Danny Welbeck and, on Sunday, Pedro Neto as part of a fluid front line, but the side lacks the control and creativity that their usual No. 9 provides. In Wearside, that limitation was once again exposed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chelsea were beaten by Sunderland as the absence of Jo\u00e3o Pedro again left them short up front.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22294,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,689],"tags":[1836,1162,59],"class_list":["post-22295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-sunderland","tag-2026-27-premier-league","tag-analytics","tag-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22295","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=22295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}