It was a familiar story for the Premier League’s top scorers.
Chelsea’s entertaining 2-2 draw with Hull on Saturday means the Blues have now found the net 10 times this season – but they have also conceded two or more goals in each of their opening four league matches for the first time in 11 years.
Only Crystal Palace and Ipswich Town have conceded more than Chelsea‘s nine goals in the top flight so far this season.
The issue predates manager Xabi Alonso’s arrival. Chelsea are now without a clean sheet in 20 league matches stretching back to January, their longest such run for 65 years.
Alonso still appears to be experimenting. This week alone, he changed shape in three successive matches – from the defeat at Arsenal to the 6-3 Carabao Cup win over Leeds in midweek and again against Hull.
Yet it was Hull who looked more likely to find a winner. No wonder there was a subdued mood at Stamford Bridge.
Alonso summed up the feeling afterwards, saying his side needed to be “competing better” and avoid being “soft” in duels.
There were also individual errors.
Jorrel Hato misjudged a cross before Hull scored their equaliser, while Mohamed Belloumi’s second goal came after Chelsea failed to clear a corner.
Despite an early goal from Morgan Rogers and a second-half equaliser from Joao Pedro, with Cole Palmer involved in both strikes, Chelsea had to settle for a point.
Hull boss Sergej Jakirovic even described Chelseagoalkeeper Emiliano Martinez as the “man of the match” after the Argentine denied Oli McBurnie, Mohamed-Ali Cho and Lucas Herrington.
Asked about Chelsea‘s defensive issues, former defender and BBC pundit Ashley Williams said: “Chelsea are all over the place in transitions. When they lose the ball, they are wide open. The goals they conceded are just basic errors.
“Both individually and as a defensive unit, they are so far off it and are shipping goals. They are not going to achieve what they want this season defending like that.”
‘We got what we deserved’
With Rogers, Palmer and Joao Pedro in fine form offensively this season, the Blues know they need to find solutions defensively.
Alonso said: “We had one or two good chances to get the winner, but you’re still open. Not happy. We can do better. We got what we deserved.
“We need to be more solid and be more controlled. [We have] new players and new staff. This is the process. In a few months I’m sure we’ll be able to control better.”
However, he said his decision to switch to a back four was not a solution to recent defensive issues, explaining: “It’s about the profile of the players.
“You can say it was back three or four, so it’s about the choice of the players, their qualities, where they play better.
“Today we played with Malo [Gusto], he was playing in good positions, trying to find him and on the right linking with other players, so it wasn’t that much of a change for me.”
It was a “tactical” decision to take Hato off at half-time, he continued, before going into more detail about what it will take to fix Chelsea‘s issues.
“It’s all maybe entertaining, but I hope that one day you say it was a boring game and we win and we don’t give these entertaining moments,” Alonso added. “But for sure it kind of repeats some patterns that we are making.
“It will take time or it will take moments to fix them when we get the lead and you still need to be competing and not to give the chance so easily for them to come back. Especially in the first goal, we can do much better.
“It was too soft to give them this hope because until then we were controlling, we were creating chances, but that momentum that we had changed the mood and the score of the game and it’s something that we need to be talking [about], we address and we will get better, but it’s having an impact on our performances at the moment.”
There will be concerns going into the trip to Brentford on Friday, the last match before the three-week international break, given that the Bees are known to be dangerous at set-pieces.
It’s not just set-pieces, though. Chelsea have conceded the majority of the goals from open play, which is something Alonso acknowledged.
“Overall, I think that we are attacking better than defending in every part,” he continued.
“We know that it’s a big topic and a big theme for us. For sure it’s just four games, but the dynamic in terms of conceding, I don’t like it and we need to do much better. Open play, set-pieces, long balls, this toughness, this competitive sense, we can do better.”
Some players, like Malo Gusto, have been criticised by supporters, and his substitution was celebrated by his own fans inside Stamford Bridge.
Meanwhile, with Moises Caicedo out injured, Chelseahave looked short of quality and numbers in the middle of the park.
Monaco pulled the plug on Chelsea‘s £47m deal to sign midfielder Lamine Camara on deadline day, having made attempts to sign Roma’s Manu Kone and Fulham‘s Sander Berge as alternative options.
Key defensive signing Maxence Lacroix was left out on Saturday but none of the defensive options have excelled this season, although their attack remain in blistering form.
It will be on Alonso to fix these problems on the training pitch with no more opportunities to sign players until the January transfer window.
