Silly individual mistakes to blame for poor Chelsea form

Chelsea has started the season with a few poor results. As much as fans want to blame Frank Lampard, individual errors are the cause of dropped points.

For Chelsea, only one thing has remained consistent throughout the early stages of the 2020/21 Premier League season: inconsistency. The team has shown an incredible attacking acumen with slick team play and thunderous golazos, but has also been comically shambolic on defense. This resulted in a ton of dropped points against undoubtedly weaker opposition.

The Blues have taken only eight points from their first five matches, good enough to sit sixth in the table with three teams immediately below them having a game in hand. Considering the opponents, Chelsea would be expecting to have a much higher tally at this point in the season, but individual mistakes continue to ruin great team performances. Saturday’s 3-3 draw with Southampton exemplified this perfectly.

Against the Saints, Chelsea had more possession, passes completed and corners taken, but still managed fewer shots by a total of 13-11. The midfield duo of N’Golo Kante and Jorginho looked especially strong, with the Frenchman’s relentless work rate and the Italian’s keen eye for a pass complimenting each other perfectly. They did a great job of linking play between the defense and the forwards, and an early Jorginho ball even sprung Timo Werner for the team’s second goal.

These moments of attacking brilliance, and the many others that fans saw on Saturday, don’t mean anything if the defense can’t stop shipping goals on unnecessary errors. All three of Southampton’s goals were results of lazy play, risky passes and mental errors, none of which are acceptable if Chelsea is seriously going to contend at the top of the Premier League.

Although he played very well overall, Kai Havertz was obviously at fault for the first Southampton goal. He was too casual on the ball in midfield, which resulted in an easy chance for Danny Ings, one of the most lethal strikers in the English top flight. Havertz may make roaming around the pitch picking out passes look effortless, but the German wunderkind needs to keep his head in the game if he’s going to reach the levels that many expect him to.

Southampton’s second goal would’ve made David Luiz proud, with Kurt Zouma’s back pass leading to a calamity of errors that resulted in a Che Adams rocket across the line. Zouma looked unsure of whether he should play the ball back to his keeper or boot it out of bounds, but in the end decided to loosely push the ball in the direction of Chelsea’s goal, leaving Kepa Arrizabalaga exposed.

I only wish Zouma would have been more decisive. While he appears to be the team’s best partner for Thiago Silva at centerback, Zouma is still making errors like an inexperienced player. He needs to get his confidence levels back to where they were under Guus Hiddink, which was arguably the best stretch in the France international’s career.

The final goal was the most excruciating because it absolutely could have been avoided. The free kick that resulted in the goal only happened because Reece James knocked Ryan Bertrand off the ball about 35 yards away from the net. James can’t give up the foul there, as the Blues are especially susceptible to set pieces and Southampton is a big, physical team. If Chelsea doesn’t give up the free kick, the Blues probably win the match, so even a small mistake was extremely costly.

I honestly don’t know how Frank Lampard is going to fix the defense. It seems like no matter who’s on the pitch, players always make decisive errors that influence results. Maybe the team needs a stronger mentality or maybe it just needs more talent. Regardless, the supporters are starting to get restless and won’t accept the team’s poor results for much longer.