When Estevao opened the scoring for Chelsea solely 16 minutes into their Champions League match in opposition to Qarabag on Wednesday, it appeared like they’d roll to victory in Azerbaijan, however as an alternative they came upon why Qarabag are one of many shock outfits of this UCL marketing campaign in a 2-2 draw.
After Hato conceded a penalty through a handball within the field, Qarabag have been ready to enter the half with a 2-1 lead, and whereas Alejandro Garnacho did pull a objective again to stage issues, the Blues could not discover a winner in a sport that was a grind from begin to end.
With virtually a 3,000 mile journey to Baku, Enzo Maresca needed to rotate his squad to deal with the journey, but it surely solely took eight minutes for his fastidiously laid plans to be destroyed when midfielder Romero Lavia left the match with an harm and was changed by Moises Caidedo. At half, one other shift was made was Tyrique George was restricted to solely 13 touches within the first half and needed to be pulled in favor of Liam Delap, who returned from a hamstring harm.
The adjustments did work because the Blues have been capable of flip a loss right into a draw however being outperformed by Qarabag is not what that they had in thoughts. The Blues held many of the possession and took 16 pictures whereas solely producing 1.08 anticipated objectives. In the meantime, Qarabag generated an xG of 1.65 on solely 9 pictures. Even taking out their penalty, that effectivity reveals what Chelsea are lacking of their striker merry-go-round. The Blues have been pressured into making adjustments as a consequence of suspensions and accidents, however depite their sizzling begins to life at Chelsea, the duo have mixed for 3 objectives and three assists in all competitions.
Wingers like Estevao and Pedro Neto have performed what they’ll, however with out Cole Palmer, the assault’s struggles put an excessive amount of stress on Reece James and the protection. Qarabag basically out-did Chelsea at their very own sport, turning counters into objectives, and there was nothing that Robert Sanchez may do about it. Many of those points are resolved when Palmer returns to the middle of the pitch, however when the Blues have aspirations of ending within the prime 4 of the Premier League whereas additionally balancing Champions League, they should carry out in these moments when their stars aren’t obtainable.
it is what the highest groups do, and to date, Chelsea have not bridged the hole from being a very good staff to changing into an incredible one. They’re nonetheless heading in the right direction to advance to the knockouts of this match, however whereas shedding to Bayern Munich confirmed how far they should go, this sport confirmed the place depth gamers want to enhance to make the Blues a extra constant aspect.
