Chelsea endured a nightmare start in their away game against West Brom in the Premier League. West Brom was unlucky not to cause one of the biggest upsets of the Premier League season when they conceded an injury-time equalizer from Chelsea to end the match on a 3-3 scoreline.
Chelsea coach, Frank Lampard started Tammy Abraham in the starting XI after he showed impressive performance in the 6-0 win against Barnsley. He scored a goal there and assisted Kai Havertz thrice. Hence in this match, he again partnered the German international winger along with Timo Werner.
Thiago Silva made his Premier League debut and was handed the captainship responsibility by Lampard. He started alongside Andreas Christensen with Willy Caballero in the goal, despite the arrival of Frenchman Eduoard Mendy.
The first half performance arises numerous questions on Chelsea’s defensive abilities. West Brom’s Robinson fired a shot in just three minutes from the left side of Chelsea’s penalty box which started with Alonso’s misplaced header.
Left-back, Marcos Alonso had the most awful performance amongst the rest of Chelsea defenders. Also, it certainly wasn’t a memorable Primer League debut for the Brazilian Thiago Silva too as he was more responsible for conceding the second goal.
It was Robinson who scored from his mistake. The experienced defender got a pass that he couldn’t collect it properly and gifted West Brom an easy opportunity to score. Goalkeeper Caballero had no chance to prevent that ball from going in the net.
West Brom was in a dream as they scored on three occasions in just 27 minutes with Kyle Bartley’s goal and Callum Robinson’s brace.
Lampard seemed very disappointed and anxious standing in the sideline and seeing his side conceding goal after goal against a weak West Brom.
He had to make some changes in the second half and he certainly did so by bringing in Cesar Azpilicueta in place of Alonso and Callum Hudson-Odoi in place of Kovacic.
This brought stability to the Chelsea defence and the performance of the Blues started to improve.
It was obvious that Chelsea will be reacting aggressively to the game and likewise started with a much-attacking intent. West Brom knew that Chelsea would fight back and the scenes in the second half were incredible.
The Chelsea coach put some words of wisdom to his players to make a comeback in the second half. It had the desired effect as Chelsea kept on pushing for a goal. Chelsea got a lifeline when Mason Mount rose to the occasion with a superb swerving shot which opened Chelsea’s scoreline.
Lampard’s words of wisdom at the interval had the desired impact, with Mason Mount grabbing a lifeline for the visitors inside 10 minutes of the restart. The team had some scintillating attacking moves and eye-catching goals from the Mason Mount-Callum Hudson-Odoi duo.
Callum Hudson-Odoi gave hope to the Blues with just 20 minutes left with a smooth one-two with Tammy Abraham.
Thiago Silva was substituted to make way for Olivier Giroud straight after their second goal, with Azpilicueta moving to the centre of the defense. The increase in attacking players put tremendous pressure on the West from the defence.
3-0 down to 3-3! What a second half from the lads! 💪 #WBACHE pic.twitter.com/ziPXjiesQi
— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) September 26, 2020
It was in the injury time when Tammy Abraham scored the equalizer to give Chelsea a much needed 1 point from the game.
Although fans might be disappointed to see Chelsea dropping points against such an opponent, it clearly gives the evidence that more work is needed in this new Chelsea team. The second half showed the attacking prowess Chelsea has and with Hakim Ziyech, Christian Pulisic yet to start the season, the attack will undoubtedly be too problematic for the opponents.
Lampard also showed that his side is capable to fight back in this 2020-21 season. As more matches will be played, Chelsea will truly unleash their true potential and fix their error-prone defence.
