It was a very messy start for the Blues, and Bournemouth had the ball in the back of the net in short order. Thankfully, Evanilson was leaning offside and thus Semenyo’s goal was ruled out.
Chelsea didn’t
settle right away and the home side continued to threaten. Eventually, we grew into the game and started stringing a few passes together, but accuracy in the final third was still lacking.
And then that flow got disrupted by the shoulder injury to Liam Delap, after a coming-together with Marcos Senesi. Those two were having a right old physical battle against each other, but it was the Chelsea man who got the unfortunate injury as they tussled to the ground and Senesi landed on top of him. (Senesi himself would also go off injured in the second half.)
Bournemouth got back into the ascendancy and finished the half much the stronger team. Only a couple excellent saves by Robert Sánchez kept the game scoreless.
Chelsea made a much better start to the second half, finally testing Petrović in the Cherries goal and hitting the post through Garnacho. But we couldn’t build on that and Bournemouth came back into the game to make it a much more even contest.
It was all there for the taking as the game entered the final quarter of an hour. Unfortunately, unlike last season when Christopher Nkunku won it for us in the final minutes, no one stepped up this year.
Carefree.
- Reece in midfield, deputizing for Caicedo
- Palmer’s first start in the Premier League since opening day
- First game since that day in which we failed to score (had gone 20 straight in all competitions with at least one goal)
- The point keeps us fourth, but now with a five-point gap behind third place Villa; Arsenal lost earlier so there’s a title race on, but we’re not in it
- Next up: big game in the Champions League, Atalanta away on Tuesday
- KTBFFH
