Chelsea lost to Sunderland at home yesterday, and sadly it’s time to sort through the wreckage. The Blues went ahead in the game which should have set it up perfectly for them, but in the end they conceded two poor goals and lost the game in feeble fashion.
Guiu flops in new role
One thing that was truly disappointing was the attack. We heard it all week and we even repeated it ourselves – after a couple of promising cameos as a sub, Marc Guiu was going to come into this Chelsea team and lead the line, playing up top as a proper number 9.
That would in turn free up Joao Pedro, who has been disappointing in that role. We’ve been told many times now that the problem is that he’s not actually a striker, he’s a number 10. With Guiu ahead of him, he’d be able to do his thing.
Well, it didn’t work out. JP was bad and Guiu even worse. The Catalan barely touched the ball. He was isolated up top and apart from running around did little of note. His duel stats are embarrassing – he competed in 3 on the ground and won 0. He competed in 0 in the air.
In total he had 2 touches in the opposition box, and took two shots, only one of which was on target, a tame effort. Quite incredibly, he completed just 2 passes in his 76 minutes on the pitch.
These might be the worst stats we’ve ever seen from a Chelsea player. But don’t just blame Guiu, he was totally isolated by the system and the slow, sideways football we played.
In other news…
This all feeds into a wider problem in the game – Chelsea didn’t compete well enough in duels. Guiu was just the tip of the iceberg in this regard.
Enzo Fernandez was Chelsea’s highest rated player without a goal or assist in the game – but even he really struggled in the game, completing none of his 3 crosses.
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