Chelsea were stunned yet again as they lose at home to Crystal Palace. The Blues now sit eight points behind Manchester City after just four games of the season and retaining the title seems to be a mammoth task for Jose Mourinho. The Blues, who hold an excellent record at home under Mourinho were dealing with a well-drilled and defensive Palace side under the guidance of Alan Pardew.
Palace took the lead in the second half when Bakary Sako scored from a low cross by the impressive Yanick Bolasie. Chelsea responded with Radamel Falcao scoring in the 79th minute with a great header but were immediately pegged back as Joel Ward scored a couple of minutes later and they held on for a famous win. There will be a lot of questions asked regarding Chelsea’s performance as we look back and provide the five talking points from the game.
Chelsea are stuttering and it doesn’t look great for them
Jose Mourinho called Chelsea’s 3-0 loss to Manchester City a ‘fake result’ while that raised a few eyebrows, this game shows just how much of a rut Chelsea are in. The Blues do not look like the all-conquering side from last season and Jose has to look at his team and fix them up. They dominated possession against Palace but didn’t really trouble them until after they had conceded. The defence still needs work, who would have thought that a Jose Mourinho team would be facing defensive problems?
The Blues need new signings and fast
Chelsea brought in Baba Rahman, Asmir Begovic and Radamel Falcao, but that hasn’t improved their squad anymore. The need to bring in new faces has been stated many times and the faster Chelsea bring in a signing or two to freshen up the team, the better the chances of them doing well this season. News has stated that Stones and Pogba could sign for them by the end of the window, hopefully, that will be enough for them.
Palace was good value for the win
The stats might show that Chelsea dominated possession and had more shots on target, but Crystal Palace were brilliant in defence and had set their game plan out perfectly. They defended in numbers and kept their shape. They were aided by the pace of Bolasie and deserved to get at least a point if not more from the game. The Premier League certainly has gotten better this season with more shock results and Palace could be riding high in the league if they continue playing like this.
Pardew is finally at home
Alan Pardew has been criticised many a time regarding his career at West Ham, Charlton and Newcastle but it seems that he has finally found a club where he is respected and with a board that backs him, he is delivering the results. He kept Palace and to an extent Newcastle up last season and this season, he has shown what he can do when the club has full faith in him.
The international break comes at a good time for the Blues
Chelsea doesn’t have a game until two weeks’ time thanks to the international break. That would be great news for Jose Mourinho as he gets time to work on his team and they need that time to recuperate. They haven’t looked sharp at all and maybe this time can be used by Mourinho to introspect on what he and his team have to do to get things working for them.