Chelsea’s featureless football is testing Todd Boehly’s brittle patience
Despite spending north of a billion in transfer fees, the Blues have let in as many goals as they have scored
December 10, 2023 6:00 pm
GOODISON PARK — There is little in football as uplifting as the tyro smashing in his first senior goal. Lewis Dobbin pinned Chelsea to the Goodison canvas in added time, sealing Everton’s third consecutive victory. This was only his fifth league appearance of the season, his arrival from the junior ranks meeting a desperate need.
You wonder what Everton might look like were Sean Dyche ever to have the luxury of points. His Premier League experience has been of the primal variety, concerned with survival, constantly under the hammer.
Two of Everton’s recent wins have come against Newcastle and Chelsea and both deserved. Dyche’s teams play with a base level of ferocity that any opponent must meet. The 10-point deduction has left Everton once more in a Darwinian struggle to avoid the drop. Had they not been dealt with so harshly by the Premier League beak over financial infractions Everton would be comfortably midtable.
Their quality if not the points they have easily meets that standard and the suspicion must be that the work rate, personality and organisation displayed might yield something more appealing should they ever be free of anxiety.
The defence is rock solid, the partnership between veteran James Tarkowski and Jarrad Branthwaite, at 21, ten years the junior, a door constantly closing on the Chelsea attack. Either side of them Vitalii Mykolenko and Nathan Patterson, on for the injured Ashley Young, excelled in support.
Dyche likes the ball played forward quickly. His favoured route is through the air. Chelsea’s increased urgency after the break created an alternative route, on the deck on the counter. Both goals came this way, Everton breaking quickly into vacated spaces.
Dwight McNeil ripped through the gap for the first, sending Dominic Calvert-Lewin free. When his shot was blocked by Robert Sanchez, Abdoulaye Doucoure smashed home the rebound. Dobbin did likewise, the ball breaking kindly to him on the edge of the box from a corner ultimately conceded when Axel Disasi failed to deal with another upfield punt from Jordan Pickford.
Chelsea were not as supine as they were at Old Trafford on Wednesday. Nevertheless they got the result their oddly featureless football deserved. Mauricio Pochettino must already be testing the brittle patience of an ownership prone to hair-trigger responses.
Conor Gallagher was once again the most dynamic presence in a midfield that cost £200m to assemble. And not a penny of that was spent on him. That kind of money compels Pochettino to persist with Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo when their contributions hardly demand it. Fernandez is the greater problem, since he is not as good as Caicedo at the base of midfield and not as effective as Gallagher as a No 8.
At this juncture Chelsea are a team waiting for Cole Palmer. All else is mediocrity, the ball moving around without purpose until it arrives at the feet of Palmer. At which point the pulse quickens in anticipation of a sudden eruption in craft, invention, excitement.
So much of today’s game is premised on athleticism and prescriptive passing, too little on instinct and impulse. Palmer has such an assured touch he is never marked, and his appreciation of space and position gives him a yard start whenever a pass picks him out.
He drifts about the pitch like a ghost, suddenly visible, and a terrible shock to defenders. This was not the easiest material with which to work. Everton’s preoccupation with advancing the ball quickly and long meant the rhythm of the contest was disruptive.
The ball spent too much time off the deck, leading to tedious headed duels and scrappy turnovers. This in turn meant Palmer was too little in the game, making runs that were not being found. There must be times when he pines for Manchester City’s patterns and certainties, despite the increased game time afforded him at Chelsea.
After 16 games Chelsea sit 12th, on the same points as Bournemouth, Wolves and Brentford. They have let in as many goals as they have scored, which just about sums up a club unable to move forward.
Pochettino talks about a reality check for a club that expects to challenge for titles. The expectation is great, but the reality is something different for a team hastily reconstructed. And now he faces further disruption following the loss of Reece James and keeper Sanchez to injury.
He says discussions about systems and style are irrelevant until his team learns to fight. In other words they must earn the right to be Chelsea, which at present they most assuredly are not.
