Alejandro Garnacho scored his first Chelsea goal after 4 minutes on Saturday, and it felt like the game was going to be all about him.
He even did his “look at me” celebration, sitting on the advertising hoardings. Everything lined up nicely for him to be the headline feature from the game.
Garnacho’s big day gets lost in the disappointment of defeat
But 15 minutes later Sunderland scored and his goal was already being forgotten about. There were bigger fish to fry – dropping points to a promoted team at home was not on the agenda for the week.
After 58 minutes Garnacho was withdrawn and Estevao came on. What could have been a big day for the summer signing was snuffed out pretty early, and his impact was forgotten even more when Sunderland won the game in the 93rd minute. By that point, his goal felt long ago and pretty irrelevant in the wider scheme of things.
Still, trying to look on the bright side, he did well on his goal. One stat that stood out for us was his “progressive carries” in the game. He had 10 of them. The rest of the team combined had 14. He was doing his part to get the ball up the pitch, but his directness wasn’t matched by the team as a whole. They were far too content to play sideways.
In other news…
A solid defence would really help Chelsea in this tough time, so it’s no surprise to see them linked to players like Dayot Upamecano, who will be available this summer.
Chelsea are looking for inspiration during this bad run, and the natural thing to do is turn to Estevao Willian. But as Joe Cole said while speaking to TNT Sport, that’s not necessarily the right move.
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