There has to come a point where Chelsea focus on more than just Cole Palmer and injuries. Both problems were unflatteringly exposed by Middlesbrough on Tuesday when Hayden Hackney gave the Championship side a 1-0 lead in their Carabao Cup semi-final clash with the second leg to be played at Stamford Bridge in fifteen days.
Chelsea’s best may still be enough to salvage the tie and book a place in February’s final at Wembley, but angry scenes at full-time suggest manager Mauricio Pochettino needs to start making the Blues more than just the sum of its expensive parts assembled sooner rather than later. .
Some of the Chelsea fans who traveled to the Riverside Stadium expressed their anger at the final whistle as several players turned out to thank them for their support at the end of a display that can be added to a growing catalog of mirror defeats: creating chances, not achieve Take them and concede a soft goal.
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Sources have told ESPN that there is a significant amount of sympathy within the club’s hierarchy that injuries have deprived Pochettino of fielding his best team regularly. It’s no exaggeration to say that he may never have trained with his ideal lineup, given the fitness issues that have blighted his campaign.
But while Chelsea had 11 players unavailable here, Middlesbrough had 12 out and lost two more to injury in the opening 20 minutes when Emmanuel Latte Lath and Alex Bangura limped off.
However, Michael Carrick’s team had a game plan, stuck to it and reaped the rewards. Hackney’s 37th-minute goal was one of only two shots on target Middlesbrough managed all afternoon, but they spent most of the second half operating with a degree of comfort as Chelsea once again struggled for taking down a team that defended deeply with organization and commitment.
“We made some mistakes and we were punished for that, in football that happens,” Pochettino said. “We have to press. If we evaluate the performance, in general we were better, we created more opportunities and had clear chances. But we didn’t score.
“That has happened this season and there have been many games that we have not won because we were not clinical enough. We are missing goals, but we are not creating opportunities. We are creating many opportunities but we are not scoring them and if we do not score, it will be difficult to win” .
It usually falls to Palmer to make the difference. Chelsea came into this game on the back of three straight wins, the second of which showed Palmer’s promise as he scored two goals and an assist as the Blues edged out Luton. He could have ended up with a similar haul here, but that’s why you shouldn’t rely solely on 21-year-olds with limited experience at the top level to achieve your goals. Sometimes, on the way to their peak, they inevitably fall short and Palmer did just that here.
After Middlesbrough goalkeeper Tom Glover deflected an early goal, Palmer had a golden chance to give Chelsea a lead in the 31st minute. Jonathan Howson played a square pass which Palmer stretched out to intercept and suddenly had time and space to choose your spot from the edge of the area. He shot wide.
Hackney punished Chelsea at the other end before Palmer squandered an even better chance in first-half stoppage time, wasting a rebound from four yards after Glover failed to latch onto Enzo Fernandez’s tame shot. There was still time before the interval for another Palmer try, this time his own, but a weak shot could not find a route past Glover.
Despite recording 81% possession in the second half, Chelsea managed just two more shots on target (five in 90 minutes) and Middlesbrough had to celebrate a victory that gives them ample reason to adopt the same game plan in West. London, against which the ‘bleus’ have failed time and time again.
It says a lot about the current state of Chelsea’s project that they are so reliant on Palmer to save them, a player they only turned to late in the market after a deal to sign Michael Olise from Crystal Palace collapsed at the last minute.
Moisés Caicedo is undoubtedly a better player than he has shown so far in a Chelsea shirt, but his defense in the Middlesbrough goal was ridiculous. The most expensive player in the history of British football seemed more concerned with keeping his hands behind his back than reaching the Hackney goal when Isaiah Jones crossed from the left.
These individual errors are aggravating the collective unrest and the resulting frustration explains the hostile scenes throughout. Thiago Silva appeared to act as a peacemaker as he tried to calm the anger of the visiting fans.
“I didn’t see what happened,” Pochettino said. “I can’t say anything about it. We can understand that our fans are disappointed, but there are still 90 minutes to play.”
Chelsea simply have to be better than this. They could still be encouraged to reach a Wembley final in Pochettino’s first season and from this position, a trophy would help silence doubts over their own future while galvanizing a young group formed over three transfer windows in 18 months. .
But Middlesbrough produced a cohesion in adversity that Chelsea can only dream of today. It’s up to Pochettino to change that.
