Chelsea lost their third game in a row
In the third post-Graham Potter game, Chelsea could score. But the new coach Frank Lampard has not been able to win points with the owner of Stamford Bridge. Open the scoring early, but Chelsea barely got the ball for the rest of the first half. They let Brighton equalize at the end of the half, then were surpassed by the visitors at the beginning of the second half. Late efforts at the end of the game could not help Chelsea return. The fifth consecutive game without a win in the Premier League made Lampard's teachers and students continue to stand in the bottom half of the scoreboard.
The position on the scoreboard reflects the performance and strength of the two current teams. Brighton is four places ahead of Chelsea and completely overwhelms the host. In the whole match, Roberto De Zerbi's students finished 26 times compared to 8 of Chelsea.
Entering the excitement, but after Alexis McAllister missed opportunities early in the game, Brighton conceded after 13 minutes. Conor Gallagher's shot from the edge of the box, the ball hit the away player, deflected, causing Robert Sanchez to close. hand.
After the goal, Chelsea could not hold the ball and was pushed deep into the home field. Brighton controlled the ball 68% of the time in the first 45 minutes and if Kepa did not play well, the visitors soon equalized. Brighton were also unlucky when two players had to leave the field because of injuries in the first half, Joel Veltman and Evan Ferguson.
But coach De Zerbi turned the match result from Brighton's own bad luck. Two reluctant substitutes, Danny Welbeck and Julio Enciso, both scored. Welbeck's dangerous header equalized late in the first half, before Enciso shot wide into the top corner to seal a 2-1 win in the 69th minute.
Besides Brighton's excellence with two mobile players Moises Caicedo in the midfield and Kaoru Mitoma on the wing, another reason for Chelsea's underperformance is that coach Lampard did not launch the strongest squad. Reece James, Mateo Kovacic and Joao Felix all came on from the bench. These are considered strategic cards for the second leg of the Champions League quarter-final against Real, also at Stamford Bridge a few days later.
Chelsea's first goal in more than a month was a rare positive after the loss. Coach Lampard celebrated that goal with excitement, but he still has a lot of work to do in attack in the context that Chelsea must score at least two goals against Real to keep their hopes up.
Chelsea is still ranked 11th with 39 points, 10 points behind Brighton and 14 points behind the European Cup group. The 2-1 win has not helped Brighton improve to seventh, but creates good psychological momentum for next week's FA Cup semi-final against Man Utd.
