We always love Nizaar Kinsella’s take on Chelsea matters. He’s not a Blues fan, so his opinions are more objective, but he’s there at every game, and has been for years.
So when he’s critical, you’ve got to take it seriously, and he was not holding back today laying into the Blues and their recent showings.
He pointed out that the team have “unravelled” which is entirely true.
“The system has collapsed, but Cole Palmer keeps scoring,” is a harsh but a totally true statement. “The forwards aren’t pressing,” he added. Again, hard to argue with that.
He took individuals to task too – Jackson, Palmer, Mudryk and Madueke all came in for criticism for their the intensity or the intelligence of their efforts.
Of course the coach, defenders, midfield and goalkeeper aren’t free of blame either…
You can see Kinsella give his take in the clip embedded here, with this section coming after 9 minutes:
Nonsense. Take a look at our xG in our last five league matches. We equaled or exceeded our opponents in 4 of 5 (Sheffield being the exception). This is not the pattern of a system that’s “collapsed,” lol! As has been mentioned before, it’s our vulnerability on the counter and off of set pieces that has been the problem—not our ability to score (whether through Cole Palmer or through others). If/when we can find better positional balance and greater tenacity in defense we’ll start turning some of these draws into wins.