Everton 1-0 Chelsea: reaction and analysis

Jose Mourinho suffered his first Premier League defeat in his second stint at Chelsea when Everton beat the Blues 1-0, thanks to a solitary goal from Steven Naismith. Chelsea dominated possession and created plenty of chances, yet the fact that they couldn’t convert a single one of those chances is a slightly worrying thing.

The loss leaves Chelsea currently sitting at 6th place in the Premier League, although it’s still very early days in the new season. Let’s take a look at how things panned out for Chelsea over the course of the 90 minutes.

Tactics:

Mourinho employed his usual counter-attacking methods: sit deep and invite the opposition (who in this case liked to play possession football) onto them and then swiftly break away and run at the defence with blistering pace whenever they got the chance. However, Mourinho did modify his tactics to suit the opposition.

For one, he made sure that attacks were usually started by the wide-men Schurrle and Hazard, and then invite the other midfielders to join in with late runs because Everton’s full-backs Coleman and Baines have a tendency to go forward more often than not. The general idea was to use one of Everton’s offensive strengths against them.

When this particular outlet wasn’t available, Chelsea fell back on Plan B: build the play patiently through the attacking midfielders positioned behind Eto’o and look to get in behind Everton’s defensive high line with well-timed runs. Both game plans seemed to work well enough in theory as plenty of chances were created but Chelsea’s poor finishing meant that Mourinho often cut a frustrated and animated figure on the touchline.

Problem areas:

The most obvious one was the finishing. Chelsea had more than 20 shots throughout the game and not a single one of them was converted. The fact that most of the attacking players put in poor performances didn’t help.

Juan Mata looked slightly subdued, Eden Hazard got bogged down by putting in extra defensive work due to Ashley Cole being caught out most of the time and Andre Schurrle, while being the most involved of the attackers, was quite frankly the worst of the lot with his poor passing and finishing. Samuel Eto’o linked up the play quite well but looked slightly off-the-pace and missed one or two good chances.

The defending left a lot to be desired as well. Branislav Ivanovic and Ashley Cole were quite poor both offensively and defensively, while the centre-back pairing of David Luiz and John Terry looked shaky at times. Despite Ashley Cole catching a lot of the heat for Naismith’s goal, the fact is it was down to a collective failure of the defence. Mourinho has a few decisions to make regarding his best defensive combination.

Conclusion

The loss wasn’t exactly disastrous, but it did expose many of the problems Chelsea are still facing. It’s no good creating chances if you fail to take them. The defensive organisation along with Mourinho’s squad selection can also be questioned. While Chelsea remain one of the firm favourites to win the Premier League this season, it’s clear that there is still plenty of work to be done to achieve that particular goal.