Yahoo Finance ‘Mundane’ — Paul Merson highlights big Chelsea weak point after Nottingham Forest defeat
Chelsea were unable to get a foot into their latest Premier League performance and were punished by Nottingham Forest as a result. The Reds fought hard for a slim 1-0 victory at Stamford Bridge on Saturday after summer signing Anthony Elanga scored his first goal in red.
Forest have now leapfrogged Chelsea in the table, having banked six points from their first four games of the season. Mauricio Pochettino’s side have just one win on the board so far, which came against Luton Town last weekend.
Despite dominating the fixture in terms of statistics, Chelsea struggled to shift into the higher gears. The Blues had a total of 21 shots during the match but only two hit the target, and neither looked like troubling Matt Turner in the away goal. Chelsea also had 76 percent possession throughout the match and made 696 passes compared to Forest’s 228, but they couldn’t make their control of the game count.
After the final whistle, Sky Sports pundits discussed Chelsea’s loss live on Soccer Saturday and Paul Merson highlighted what could potentially be Pochettino’s biggest weakness moving forward this season.
“Chelsea could still be playing all weekend, they never really looked like scoring. I can’t remember the [Forest] goalkeeper making a real good save, there were two shots that he was never going to let in. They [Forest] defended very well and kept the ball out the box.
“I’ve watched Chelsea too many times. If you play ten behind the ball against Chelsea, they find it so difficult to break down. It’s so mundane, it’s so slow. They might do it with pace for about a minute or so but it’s never constant pressure, they never pin teams in. It happened again today, they never looked like a scoring a goal, it was disappointing.
“This has been a couple of years now, trying to break teams down is difficult [for Chelsea]. Against Liverpool they were really good because Liverpool came out and played and Chelsea can pick passes. But when teams sit ten behind the ball...”
