Chelsea vs Crystal Palace: Rusty Blues sputter against well-oiled Palace machine.

When Chelsea conquered the Club World Cup against the European Champions PSG a little over a month ago, Crystal Palace’s manager, Oliver Glasner, was in the stands. A month later, the Austrian would orchestrate another underdog’s title win over a different Champion, helping Palace beat Liverpool on penalties.

Glasner in particular, is a bit of a specialist against more fancied sides. Their last 11 games have seen them face Arsenal, Liverpool, City and Spurs away, an FA Cup semi-final against Villa, a FA Cup Final vs City and the Community Shield vs Liverpool. Just the 1 defeat. 2 titles. They also arrived in this game with six preseason games and a Community Shield tie to get up to speed. Chelsea had just the two. To say then that the season opener would be a guaranteed 3 points would be frankly, quite the insult to their London neighbours.

Large parts of the game pitted Glasner’s 5-2-3 & 5-4-1 against Chelsea’s 3-diamond-3. A box midfield of Cole Palmer, Enzo Fernandez, Moises Caicedo and Marc Cucurella consistently tried to overload the centre, but Palace’s front 3 stayed very narrow, helped by Cucurella inverting. It opened up some spaces on either side of the pivot, but whenever Trev Chalobah or Reece James tried to carry, Palace’s wide attackers quickly moved across to kill time.

The inability to breach those central areas was exacerbated by a few individual issues. Enzo Fernandez looked short of sharpness against Milan & struggled to create directly or indirectly. Joao Pedro’s first test against a back 3 saw him endure his first rough game in a Chelsea shirt. Jamie Gittens, playing his first PL game, was given no room to turn on his afterburners for & endured a frustrating afternoon, before being subbed after 54 minutes. Cole Palmer was diligently followed by Chris Richards, with Palace’s compact 5-4-1 stamping out any creative ember before it lit a fire. It was only the 2nd time in 11 PL games he managed no shot on target. The result was a rusty frontline misfiring - of 19 shots, 16 of them blocked or off-target.

With Palace’s CBs being drawn out by the box midfield, the centerforward should have been asked to make runs in behind Lacroix. Joao Pedro is a forward who functions best when dropping into spaces. Chelsea do have a centerforward who was #1 in the PL for runs in behind the defensive line. Maresca mentioned before the game that he was free to leave in the transfer window.

The biggest question before the game was whether the center of Chelsea’s defence would hold up against a challenging trio of Eze, Sarr and Mateta. The spotlight was firmly on 19-year-old Josh Acheampong, starting his first league game since the 15th of January against Bournemouth. That game saw him partly responsible for Antoine Semenyo’s stunning goal, after which he saw very limited gametime in the league. That pressure must have weighed heavily on young shoulders, and Mateta zeroed in on isolating him very early on in the game. There were some cracks - an error leading to a shot, and being scolded by Robert Sanchez for allowing Mateta to outmuscle him before trying a volley from range. But there was more evidence of why Chelsea rate him so highly, refusing any talks with Bournemouth for his transfer and refusing (as of now) to sign a new center-back after Levi Colwill’s ACL surgery. On a couple of occasions he slalomed through the center of Palace’s intense press; winning 9 of his 12 duels against a fluid Palace attack could see the Sporting Directors keep their wallets closed for the time being.

Defence yielded almost all of the positives from the afternoon, with Reece James looking closer & closer to the colossus he was at his peak. Trev Chalobah put in a quietly assured display as well, ensuring the clean sheet stayed pristine. It is still too early in the season to make definitive tactical conclusions but there are questions that could prove crucial later in the season for Maresca.

How good is the data for Joao Pedro’s performances as a solitary 9, especially against back 5s? Both his managers at Brighton regularly played him with a 9 or behind one; so how ready is he for the solitary 9 responsibility? How much time will it take to bed in Jamie Gittens as a starting LW? Do Chelsea need a new LCB? Enzo Maresca was asked that post the game, he replied with, “You like to talk about central defenders? I already spoke. Thank you very much.” Which is perhaps the best way to look at this game - keep your eyes on the calendar and your lips sealed, there is still a long way to go.