We’ve got a while until the next Chelsea game, meaning yesterday’s frustrating draw with Nottingham Forest is going to be rattling around in our head for a while.
If you were going to blame one person for the two points dropped, it would have to be Matz Sels, the Forest goalkeeper. He made a number of wonderful saves and did some superb time wasting to slow the game down and drain the clock, especially once his side were down to ten men. But there were some players in Blue who let the team down too.
Despite a huge amount of talent on the pitch and the bench, there wasn’t nearly enough organised attacking play.
Cucurella and Gusto limited by Enzo’s instructions
The lowest rated player on stats sites WhoScored and SofaScore was Marc Cucurella, the Chelsea left back. He’s been having a great season – in fact he’s been having a great 2024 – but was considered the weak link today.
We thought both he and Malo Gusto, his opposite number on the other flank, both struggled. Cucurella was dribbled past twice, he lost 4 of his 6 ground duels and 4 of his 6 aerial duels too. He lost possession 4 times.
In possession he was fine when keeping it simple – he completed 51 of 52 passes. But in attack he didn’t offer nearly enough. Zero shots, zero dribble attempts, zero completed crosses and one completed long balls.
In part this is not Cucurella’s fault. This setup under Enzo Maresca has him “inverting” centrally where he doesn’t get the chance to overlap or affect the game as much in the final third as much. But in a game where we needed a goal, we really need players to do more than this. Gusto is in a similar boat – perhaps seeing his biggest assets limited by his role in the team.
