West Brom vs. Chelsea Player Ratings: No kudos for carelessness

Chelsea fought their way to a draw in a match they should have never had to do so. How did the players rate on such a back and forth day?

Chelsea visited the Hawthorns hoping to return to winning ways. The Blues, however, temporarily forgot how to play the sport. Basic footballing concepts got lost on several Chelsea players. The blues ensured that they made the fixture as difficult as possible, digging a deep hole for themselves. Here’s how the players performed fared:

GK, Willy Caballero, 4

Caballero did not make any save and he let two shots pass directly under him. That is unacceptable and is such a contrast from his midweek performance. Against Barnsley, Caballero saved all the shots on target he faced. Against West Brom, all the shots on target he faced went in. This doesn’t tell the full story about Caballero’s performance though, as his defense did everything to make sure that the goalkeeper was in the line of danger as quickly as possible. He was hung out to dry. The shots that went under him shouldn’t have gotten to his penalty area in the first place.

RB, Reece James, 6.5

It would seem that James was one of the better performers, but with James’ (lack of) defensive contribution, he ended up having to play out of his skin to salvage anything for Chelsea. James watched on as the first shot went through his legs and into the bottom corner. The corner that was flicked on wasn’t so much him not picking up a man as it was nobody picking up any man. The corner was embarrassing for a Premier League team to concede, let alone a top six team. Alonso and Christensen were marking two people, Bartley was behind them, free. James was marking God knows who. Same can be said about Tammy Abraham. James and Alonso didn’t see the free man behind them because they didn’t bother to look, which was surprising because you generally expect opponents to be in your penalty area in a corner. James did more attacking in the second half but still not much defending. He made six key passes and created one big chance.

RCB, Andreas Christensen, 7

Christensen was cool and composed throughout the match. Even when Chelsea were down by an embarrassing three goals, he kept his head and cleaned up loose balls. One of the more impressive aspects of Christensen’s performance was his position. He always seemed to be in the right place to intercept dangerous plays or clear danger. He did concede three goals, but there’s not much he could have done for any of the goals, except maybe the corner and that cannot really be pinned on Christensen. He was not afraid to take a yellow for the team when he got caught upfield. You would think he would be more skeptical about that especially after the red against Liverpool but no, he did what he had to do.

LCB, Thiago Silva, 3

Silva was part of a defense that conceded nine shots on target to the 20th placed team on the Championship. He kept a clean sheet in that match though, mainly thanks to Caballero. However that was then, and this is now. Silva was not solid against West Brom. Far from it. He made no tackles, was dribbled past twice and made an error leading to a goal, putting the team under even more pressure while being a goal down.

LB, Marcos Alonso, 4

This is a game that Alonso would want to forget in a hurry. He had a bad game. He misdirected a header, one that he could have at least directed to one of his centerbacks. His misdirected header ultimately ended in a goal. Alonso seems the main cause of the goal, but there are questions to be asked of his teammates in the wake of his scuttled header. Where were the central midfielders? They were there, but did nothing to break up the play. Kovacic at least tried to put pressure on Mattheus Pereira. Kante jogged to where Pereira was and just decided not to bother to tackle, because tackling is for losers, eh? What was James doing? Nothing. He made no tackle, neither did he block the shot. The ball went through his legs. Yes, Alonso gave the ball away, but his teammates are just as guilty as he is for that goal. The corner also did not paint Alonso is glory. Alonso doesn’t even check his shoulder, careless.