After losing to Borussia Dortmund 1-0 on Wednesday night at Signal Iduna Park, Chelsea has a lot of work to do. Despite controlling the majority of the action, the Blues were hurt by a quick German counterattack, regretting missed opportunities and facing a difficult task at Stamford Bridge in the return leg next month. That goal from the rapid, Karim Adeyemi, being the difference.
Both teams created excellent opportunities in the first half but failed to capitalize on them. Joao Felix hit the crossbar for the Blues, and in the waning seconds of the first half, Dortmund RB Marius Wolf saw his shot flash across the goal. Everything except the decisive goal was missing at the half, leaving Chelsea’s head coach, Graham Potter, to wonder how his team weren’t at least one up.
The Blues came out of the break strong, unlike the response after the half time break against West Ham. And CFC continued to look threatening but were absolutely toothless in front of of goal in general. BVB shot-stopper and Swiss International, Gregor Kobel, denied the blues many chances, and in my opinion, a man of the match deserving performance. The hosts scored the only goal of the leg directly from a Chelsea corner, with Karim Adeyemi beating Enzo Fernandez with his blistering pace, and slotting into an empty net after successfully rounding the Chelsea keeper, Kepa Arrizabalaga. The English side will host the ‘die Schwarzgelben’ club in the reverse tie, at the bridge, on the 7th of Match.
Three Lessons learned from Chelsea loss
Chelsea’s January signings still need time to gel
The blues have spent well over £300m in the January window, raising the season spending to over £600m to seriously improve the squad, there will be problems with chemistry. With the likes of Joao Felix, Mykhailo Mudryk, Noni Madueke, Beniot Badiashile, and Enzo Fernandez, being guaranteed a starting position, it will take time for these players to adapt. However, only Felix, Mudryk, and Fernandez were registered for the UCL. Despite there being only ‘three’ new players in the Champions League squad, we’ll still see this problem in the league.
Many of the CFC faithful would blame this problem on the manager, but the main problem isn’t the creativity, but rather the finishing. The intention is there but the Blues forward lines aren’t taking advantage when the opportunity arises. Getting rid of Potter at this stage is comical, especially with a major problem being to gel these new players, a new manager will only run into the same problem.
Toothless in front of goal
The only Premier League team to not score on the counter in the previous two campaigns is Chelsea. The blues has only scored two goals in the league through counter-attacks since 2020/21 through February 2023. In 2019/20 alone, the west London club scored seven of their own. Truly, a very worrying stat.
Chelsea were able to put themselves in some excellent positions for offense, but they did not take advantage of the chances they presented. Portuguese forward Felix had the best opportunities in the first 45 minutes, but he missed them. The Blues had two wins in 13 games going into this match (now being two wins in 14), which is an inexcusable poor streak from the ‘pride of London’ club no matter the circumstance. Although there are indications of improvement, nothing seems to be working. Felix missed opportunities, Mykhailo Mudryk struggled to find consistency, and the midfield easily being ran through is CFC’s night summed up at the German city. Although good work is being done, Chelsea was penalized for failing to score once again.
The tie isn’t dead – yet
With a significant injury boost in N’golo Kante set to return for club, there’s still reasons to be optimistic that the London club will advance, especially only being one down and playing at home. With the second leg at Stamford Bridge coming up in weeks time, the Blues are still in good position in the tie, but the lack of chemistry are still evident.
The next meeting between the two is just under three weeks away, so the Blues have a chance to make things right. They will be aware that they could have, and probably should have, gotten a better result Wednesday night. Will Chels’ advance to the Quarter-Finals of the Champions League?