The mood at Chelsea remains positive after a great start to the season, but there’s no denying that ending the run before the international break with a home draw against Nottingham Forest was a disappointing moment.
It’s only 2 points dropped, and we’re still ahead of schedule compared to where we thought we’d be at this stage, but what perhaps made it more annoying than it otherwise would have been was the feeling of familiarity.
We’ve seen this setup so many times already: smaller team comes to Stamford Bridge, sits deep, nick a goal from a set piece, frustrates our attack until we start making massed subs and lose all our shape and attacking plan.
All it needed was the sucker punch winner from the team down to ten men right at the death to complete the set – luckily Robert Sanchez was ready to provide a brilliant late stop to save us that ignominy at least.
As they pointed out on the Chelsea Echo podcast, this was a “blueprint” for other teams who want to come to Stamford Bridge this season and get a result. It’s not like Forest invented it – in fact they’re only copying the blueprint every team has in those situations. But they executed it very well.
🗣️@Louis_Beneventi: “This is how to beat Chelsea.”
Was Chelsea’s result at the weekend a blueprint for other teams on how to break down Enzo Maresca’s Chelsea?#CFC
⬇️Listen to the full show below https://t.co/i88n8YG5G4 pic.twitter.com/i8e7D08XU9
— The Chelsea Echo (@TheChelseaEcho) October 8, 2024
Chelsea fixtures now play into their hands
We suppose that’s the advantage of the tough run of fixtures coming up – we will be back to playing on the break, and we’ve looked great at that this season.
But after that we have plenty more games this season to come against weaker teams that will sit deep, and it’s one of Enzo Maresca’s priorities to figure out how to deal with it. He specifically mentioned players like Jadon Sancho, but he really didn’t do enough in that game.
For all our good progress this season, if we don’t solve our major issue of breaking down deep blocks, we won’t win anything.
