Forget the Lord Mayor’s Show. This was all a little after the Club World Cup for Chelsea on their first return to competitive football since that FIFA carnival in the United States.
There was no Robbie Williams singing in a white tracksuit this time. No brass band fighting to be heard over the fireworks. No Donald Trump sticking around to celebrate.
There was only Chelsea and their gratitude for the existence of Law 13. Were it not for that singular line in the game’s laws – the one which says Marc Guehi had moved to within a metre of the Chelsea wall when Eberechi Eze blasted his free-kick beyond Robert Sanchez – Enzo Maresca’s side might have lost their Premier League opener here at Stamford Bridge.
They struggled to overcome the Crystal Palace block which forced them sideways more times than Maresca would have liked with Cole Palmer, unlike in his Club World Cup demolition of Paris Saint-Germain, limited in his influence from start to finish. They looked like a team who were playing after a 13-day pre-season facing another who had been back together for 40 days, give or take.
Chelsea face West Ham at the London Stadium this Friday, by which time Maresca hopes his side will have shaken away any hangover that may have held them back in this match.
‘We could have counter attacked better, we could have defended better, but it is only the first game of the season,’ he said. ‘For sure, slowly, slowly, we’re going to be better.
Chelsea suffered a summer hangover in their 0-0 draw against Crystal Palace on Sunday
The Blues will be grateful that Law 13 in the rule book disallowed Eberechi Eze’s free-kick
‘They (Palace) played about eight games (in pre-season). We played just two. We tried our best. We didn’t lose a clean sheet.’
That is true. Technically, Chelsea stopped Palace from scoring, even if they did rely on VAR James Bell recommending that our referee Darren England disallow Eze’s strike in the 10th minute for a rule that a fair few inside Stamford Bridge did not even know existed.
But watching Chelsea struggle to stitch together attacking sequences thereafter, you could not help thinking back to what was said during the pre-match press conference at Cobham on Friday.
Maresca had underlined the importance of Levi Colwill. Not only in how he defends but in how he is used to build attacks from the back with the line-breaking passes he is capable of producing.
That is why Chelsea’s head coach wants to sign a suitable centre back this month with Colwill’s ACL injury set to sideline him for the foreseeable. Despite Chelsea having more central defenders than many of their rivals, Maresca believes no like-for-like replacement exists within his squad, and he was further hamstrung here by losing Tosin Adarabioyo to a knock in training.
Chelsea’s decision-makers disagree with Maresca, and essentially, they have told him that he must find an internal solution because their chequebook is closed for centre backs. They have already spent significant sums this summer – £48.5million on Jamie Gittens, £37m on Jorrel Hato, £60m on Joao Pedro, £30m on Liam Delap and so on – and reckon their squad is strong enough.
With that, one of the club’s own in Josh Acheampong was selected at the heart of Maresca’s defence instead. At 19 years and 104 days, he was the second-youngest player to start for Chelsea in their opening game of a Premier League season, after Glen Johnson in 2003-04.
When Marc Cucurella inverted into midfield to leave Chelsea with a back three, it was on Acheampong to pretend to be Colwill with Reece James on his right and Trevoh Chalobah on his left. Acheampong was ‘the guy in the middle’, as Maresca likes to describe it.
Chelsea struggle to stitch together attacking sequences with their revamped forward line
Acheampong held his own overall, though he was the one who gave away possession while trying to pass from the back as Palace won their free-kick from which Eze scored. While the visitors celebrated, Chelsea’s set-piece coach Bernardo Cueva immediately began badgering the fourth official, Michael Salisbury, alerting him to Guehi’s position next to Chelsea’s wall.
Maresca was asked again on signing a replacement for Colwill afterwards and spikily said: ‘You like to talk about central defenders? I already spoke. Thank you very much.’
With Maresca having seemingly lost his battle with those above him over a centre-back signing, he must find a solution and fast, given how crucial that position is to the way his team play.
Chelsea had chances to score, especially towards the end. Andrey Santos skied one in stoppage time which was such a waste of a chance that Palmer sank to his knees upon witnessing it.
But overall, this was not how Chelsea’s supporters imagined their afternoon going after arriving with such optimism, even singing ‘champions of the world’ within 10 seconds of kick-off as new artwork was unveiled above the Shed End to remind everyone of that fact.
Cucurella had a header cleared off the line at the very start, but it was not until the 90th minute when Dean Henderson would next be tested as Liam Delap blasted the ball directly at Crystal Palace’s goalkeeper. No club had seen more players grab goals on their Premier League debut than Chelsea. Their record stood at 27, but Delap could not add to that total here, nor Joao Pedro or Jamie Gittens or Estevao Willian, who was brought on as a second-half substitute.
Chelsea want to tell anyone and everyone that they are world champions but whether they can play like they are, so soon after that slog of a summer, remains to be seen.
