Chelsea: Three lessons learnt from more dropped points to United

Give Marcos Alonso time

Sunday’s match against Manchester United was far from a classic Marcos Alonso performance at left wing-back. This is evident from Tuchel’s decision to replace the Spaniard with Christian Pulisic 70 minutes into the game when Chelsea were desperately surging forward for an equalizer. For a wing-back who has largely based his game on his ability to contribute offensively, Tuchel’s decision ironically highlights the 30-year-old’s low output levels on the day.

However, the game against Manchester United was Alonso’s first match since he played the full 90’ against Malmö FF on the 2nd of November. Since that game, he has been left out of the side in part due to Chilwell’s brilliant form and in part due to an unfortunate injury sustained prior to the match against Burnley. Alonso then had to spend the international break recuperating accordingly. The point here is that the Spaniard needs a few more games under his belt before he gets back up to full speed. After such a long lay-off, elements of rustiness are as evident as they are unavoidable in his game. Moreover, while his performance was not good on the day, he is far from being the main reason behind the two dropped points against United. The wing-back’s underlying numbers have actually been rather respectable this campaign, and the level of performances Alonso was able to conjure up during the early periods of the season certainly calls for greater amounts of patience to be had.