Chelsea moved into the top half of the table with a hard-fought home victory over Brighton & Hove Albion after playing the entire second half with only 10 men.
Their new-found threat from attacking set pieces had initially eased Mauricio Pochettino’s team into a comfortable two-goal lead. Enzo Fernandez’s header put them ahead early on, with Levi Colwill converting Nicolas Jackson’s nod back before the first half had reached its midway point.
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Yet Facundo Buonanotte pulled one back and, moments later, Conor Gallagher’s second yellow card saw the England midfielder dismissed and Chelsea forced into a rearguard action.
Fernandez’s penalty midway through the second half, earned after the VAR pinpointed a foul by James Milner on Mykhailo Mudryk, eased some nerves only for Joao Pedro to flick in a second for the visitors deep into stoppage time. Amid the tension thereafter, including a late VAR check that overturned a 100th-minute penalty awarded for handball against Colwill, Chelsea clung on.
Here, Liam Twomey breaks down the game’s main talking points.
When are these players going to learn?
Chelsea went into this match bottom of the Premier League’s fair play table. Asked in his pre-match press conference on Friday about the source of their indiscipline, Pochettino pointed to a lack of English top-flight experience in his young squad.
Yet against Newcastle last weekend and now Brighton, it was Reece James and Gallagher, two of the most seasoned Premier League performers and the captains on the pitch, whose rash decisions reduced Chelsea to 10 men.
Gallagher is shown a red card for two bookable offences (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)James’ second yellow for fouling Anthony Gordon could easily be dismissed as frustration, given his team were 3-1 down. Gallagher sliding in from behind on Billy Gilmour when already booked, with Chelsea 2-1 up and half-time fast approaching, was utterly inexplicable.
A furious Pochettino paced and shook his head as Gallagher sullenly trudged off the pitch. The manager’s message about balancing Premier League intensity with calm heads has clearly not been heeded by his players, and Chelsea cannot hope to climb into the European places until they get out of their own way.
Has Pochettino been watching Tony Pulis teams?
Picking a defence consisting of four tall, muscular centre-backs in true Tony Pulis style may not be the most subtle way to gain a significant advantage at set pieces, but it is undeniably effective.
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All too often this season, Chelsea’s repertoire at attacking corners has been limited to a couple of stiff blocks and a well-timed Thiago Silva run to the near post, or a hanging cross towards Axel Disasi at the far post. Pochettino’s default team simply features too few players who are genuinely dominant aerially to do much else.
Chelsea ran their pet play for Silva on their first corner of this game, but it was their second opportunity that underlined the flexibility that getting more height into the side affords them: Benoit Badiashile keeping a floated Gallagher delivery alive at the back post, holding off two players and hooking it back across for Fernandez to head in. If the Argentinian had not done so, Colwill was waiting.
Fernandez rises to nod in his first Premier League goal (Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC via Getty Images)Four minutes later they repeated the trick, with Jackson this time heading back across the six-yard box for Colwill to nod over the line.
Given how few reliable routes to goal this team has, genuine set-piece prowess is nothing to scoff at.
But who can question Chelsea’s spirit?
This game, coming so soon after Pochettino publicly lit a fire under his Chelsea players for the first time this season after their collapse against Newcastle, was always going to be a particularly telling indicator of his command over this squad.
There can be no doubt that he got the kind of response he was looking for; Chelsea had seized the initiative early against Brighton, imposed themselves physically all over the pitch — too much so at times — and even overcame that large dose of self-inflicted adversity to get a home win they so desperately needed.
Colwill scores his first Chelsea goal against the club where he was on loan last season (Jacques Feeney/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)Pochettino’s team have real spirit. His challenge is to consistently channel it in a positive direction — rather than, to name but two examples, Moises Caicedo fouling with reckless abandon when on a yellow in the second half, or Fernandez becoming the latest Chelsea player to succumb to the epidemic of brainlessly kicking the ball away to provoke a booking.
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But it was evident in the way Chelsea counter-attacked with composure and lightning speed to win their penalty that extended their lead, then just about held on in the face of waves of late Brighton pressure, that this talented group of players have the desire to be active participants in their own Premier League rescue.
What did Pochettino say?
On a much needed win: “We controlled the second half, scored the third goal with one less (player), and then conceded in the last few minutes. It was crazy in the end because too much happened; the team were tired, we were all tired, and there was confusion and emotion. But after (the 4-1 loss at) Newcastle, we needed to show a different face, and we did. That’s why I’m happy.”
On Gallagher’s red card: “I don’t believe it was a sending off, but I need to watch again. I don’t want to complain. We have to make the referees’ lives easier, but the referees also need to try to understand us.”
What next for Chelsea?
Wednesday, December 6: Manchester United (A), Premier League, 8:15pm GMT, 3:15pm ET
Chelsea’s meetings with Manchester United are no longer the potential title deciders they were not so long ago, but the rivalry between the clubs and the two sets of fans endures.
What would help recapture those days is if Chelsea would start beating the men from Old Trafford again — it’s now six meetings since it last happened, in the 2019-20 FA Cup final, and they haven’t enjoyed an away victory on the red side of Manchester for 10 years.
This fixture last season saw the visitors suffer a 4-1 embarrassment after five successive draws between the sides.
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(Top photo: Alex Pantling/Getty Images)
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