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Chelsea player ratings: Wolves’ goal summed up many Blues’ performances

By George Perry

LONDON, ENGLAND - MARCH 10: Raul Jimenez of Wolverhampton Wanderers celebrates after scoring his team's first goal during the Premier League match between Chelsea FC and Wolverhampton Wanderers at Stamford Bridge on March 10, 2019 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
LONDON, ENGLAND - MARCH 10: Raul Jimenez of Wolverhampton Wanderers celebrates after scoring his team's first goal during the Premier League match between Chelsea FC and Wolverhampton Wanderers at Stamford Bridge on March 10, 2019 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images) /
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LONDON, ENGLAND – MARCH 10: Eden Hazard of Chelsea scores his team’s first goal during the Premier League match between Chelsea FC and Wolverhampton Wanderers at Stamford Bridge on March 10, 2019 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images) /

Pedro, Right wing: 5.5

Wolves’ extremely well-disciplined defence did not allow Pedro to find any space to run into or towards in the final third. Much like Kovacic, a decent decision to start him and a better decision to sub him.

Gonzalo Higuain, Striker: 4.5

Gonzalo Higuain scored the winning goal, bringing him up to six goals in seven league appearances since coming to AC Milan. Oh wait, I’m all sorts of confused. Higuain took six shots against Wolves, none of which went in, bringing him up to 25 shots and keeping him at three goals since arriving at Chelsea from AC Milan.

That first part was about Krzysztof Piatek, who did in fact score his sixth league goal since making the move to AC Milan that cleared the way for Higuain to join the Blues. But Piatek doesn’t know Maurizio Sarri’s system, so Chelsea did not even try for him.

On the subject of strikers and Italian teams, Alvaro Morata had the day off on Saturday. Diego Simeone thinks Morata is so important that he rested him in La Liga to keep him ready for the Champions League at Juventus on Tuesday.

I hope you have a sense of humour about all this, because Chelsea will continue to look like a complete joke over their January striker business.

Eden Hazard, Left wing: 5.5 + 1.5

Eden Hazard scored the kind of goal that reminds you of the quality he brings to the team. His placement of the shot was impeccable, as was his movement to find the precise location at the top of the box to send the ball slicing between seven Wolves players into the bottom corner of the net.

So where was he the rest of the game? The goal also revealed yet again the contrast between what Hazard can be and sometimes is, and what he too often lets himself become. Wolves shut down Hazard just as they shut down the rest of Chelsea’s offence. Like we said above and yesterday about the left-back, this was a situation where Hazard needed the manager to change the system to allow him to be his best and do the things he could do. Hazard’s goal was against the run of play, against the trend of his play and owed nothing to the team’s tactics.

Next. Marcos Alonso and Emerson in a no-win battle for left-back. dark

Hence the split grade: 5.5 for the game as a whole, but an additional 1.5 for sparing Chelsea a total embarrassment in the way only he can.

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