Chelsea finished 2025 with a 2-2 draw against Bournemouth at Stamford Bridge, a result that underlined persistent defensive problems and leaves the club in a precarious position heading into 2026. The hosts began poorly: Mois\u00e9s Caicedo picked up a yellow card inside five minutes and will miss the forthcoming trip to Manchester City. A long throw from Antoine Semenyo created two headers in the box and David Brooks converted the rebound after Robert S\u00e1nchez could only parry the initial effort.<\/p>\n
Chelsea responded when Est\u00eav\u00e3o\u2019s run won a penalty following a challenge by Semenyo. Cole Palmer stepped up and converted from the spot in the 15th minute. Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez then produced a brilliant finish, his first touch and feint creating space before he struck into the top corner to put Chelsea ahead.<\/p>\n
The lead lasted only briefly. Trevoh Chalobah\u2019s attempted clearance from another long throw rebounded off him and Justin Kluivert was unmarked to tap in Bournemouth\u2019s equaliser. That sequence compounded a night in which goals conceded were directly linked to long throw-ins into the penalty area.<\/p>\n
Robert S\u00e1nchez made several important saves and continued a strong run of form, but there was little he could do for the two goals conceded. Wesley Fofana was outstanding defensively and received Chelsea\u2019s Player of the Match recognition alongside Cole Palmer. David Brooks was named Player of the Match for Bournemouth.<\/p>\n
The draw means Chelsea have won one of their last seven Premier League matches, a slide that has seen them fall out of Champions League positions. With a difficult away fixture at Manchester City next, Enzo Maresca\u2019s side will enter 2026 under pressure to arrest the negative run.<\/p>\n
Player ratings (starting XI): Robert S\u00e1nchez 6.8; Josh Acheampong 6.0; Trevoh Chalobah 8.1; Wesley Fofana 6.3; Malo Gusto 6.5; Mois\u00e9s Caicedo 7.3; Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez 8.0; Est\u00eav\u00e3o 7.5; Cole Palmer 8.1; Alejandro Garnacho 7.1; Liam Delap 6.6.<\/p>\n
Subs used and ratings: Reece James 6.8 (46\u2019); Pedro Neto 6.8 (46\u2019); Jo\u00e3o Pedro 6.6 (63\u2019); Andrey Santos N\/A (87\u2019); Jamie Gittens N\/A (90\u2019).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chelsea drew 2-2 with Bournemouth at Stamford Bridge; costly long throw-ins wiped out a lead. in 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5539,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,172],"tags":[1162,1089,319],"class_list":["post-5540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-epl","tag-analytics","tag-chelsea-struggles","tag-cole-palmer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5540","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=5540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}