Chelsea got lucky and scraped a 1-0 win over Bournemouth last night thanks to a late Christopher Nkunku goal.
The result shouldn’t fool anyone though – given how well the Cherries played and the penalty they missed, the Blues would have been pretty lucky to walk away with one point here, let alone 3. Enzo Maresca pretty much acknowledged that after the game.
It’s always interesting to see the WhoScored rating after a game like this. The three lowest rated players for Chelsea included Pedro Neto (who got a rating of 6.2/10), Nicolas Jackson (5.9) and and Axel Disasi (6.4).
It’s hard to disagree with that selection. Jackson had one of those games where he really struggled to affect things. In typical Jackson style he raced onto one cross and fired it over – and was then ruled offside anyway. Apart from that he barely threatened the Cherries’ goal. He managed just one shot on target – although the whole team manage just 3 between them, to be fair.
Neto was taken off at half time after failing to make an impact at all in the first half, while Disasi looked pretty uncomfortable played out of position at right back.
Chelsea need new attacking solutions despite a good result
Maresca will hope that that Malo Gusto or Reece James can return next week to replace Disasi. But Neto and Jackson are likely to be straight back in the team for that West Ham match next Saturday, so we’d better hope that training this week finds some good solutions to get them into the game more.
It’s always nice to steal 3 points like this, but the fact we scored a late winner shouldn’t distract anyone from the painful reality of how we played for most of that game, especially going forward.
