Chelsea suffered a 1-0 loss at the hands of Borussia Dortmund in Germany, despite the result, many Chelsea fans across the globe will be feeling confident for the return leg with the Blues having 21 shots this evening including one miraculously cleared off the line by former Liverpool midfielder Emre Can.
Here are 3 things I learned from tonight’s performance:
1) Graham Potter’s decision to leave out Aubameyang could cost us
For me, it was the wrong decision in the first place to leave out your only natural striker from the Champions league squad. As tonight showed, Chelsea had some lovely bits of football until the moment to finish, even if the team plays better without Aubameyang, you can’t possibly tell me he wouldn’t have scored one of those chances that Joao Felix missed tonight.
2) Ben Chilwell is Chelsea’s starting left back
Chilwell looked shaky in some moments defensively, but for me he was a bigger improvement than Marc Cucurella, especially going forward. Chilwell was constantly offering the attacking support to Mudryk that he lacked against West Ham. Despite Mudryk playing poorly, it was not down to Ben Chilwell, in fact, Chilwell created a total of 3 chances this match, astonishingly, that’s more than Cucurella has created in his last 8 games in all competitions.
Getting Ben healthy and up to speed is vital if Chelsea want to still have a shot at the top four and turn the second leg around at home.
3) Anthony Barry might have to have a position review
You saw our goal tonight, why on earth did we have 1 man back? Why Enzo? It was a mismatch between him and Adeyemi on pace. Anthony Barry is known to be responsible for Chelsea’s set-piece organisation so it baffles me how we’ve had the same tactic from corners for the last 2-3 seasons. Chelsea needs to seriously look into Barry if he does not mix things up. For me, you can only get away with 1 man back from corners if it’s N’Golo Kante.