Chelsea played with its six major summer signings on the field for the first time together since nearly $250 million was spent.
The Spanish side, Sevilla held the new-look Chelsea in a 0-0 draw in Group E. It was the first time ever the fans experienced a goalless game since coach Frank Lampard joined Chelsea back in 2019.
Chelsea although could have emerged out ad winners in the 0-0 draw at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday, but at the end of the day, they were happy.
The fluidity Premier League sees in the Chelsea attack was less in evidence against the Europa League winners of the previous season. But that was balanced out with the team’s impressive and disciplined defensive structure in the backline.
After all the questioning regarding the backline were arising mainly after the points slipped in the previous game, there was a clean sheet and no errors gifting chances to the opponent team.
Europa League winner Sevilla, which has been a thorn for every English team in Europe diminished the heavyweight Chelsea’s attacking threat which resulted in fewer half-chances throughout the 90 minutes. Sevilla had played 17 matches against the English sides and has lost only four of them previously. They have lost one match out of the last nine and defeated Wolverhampton Wanderers as well as Manchester United on its way to its fourth Europa League title in seven seasons last August.
Sevilla had a great deal of possession in the first half of the game with only Nemanja Gudelj’s header forced Goalkeeper Edouard Mendy to make a save.
Chelsea was most productive in terms of attacking just after the half time when both defenders of Chelsea, Ben Chilwell, and Kurt Zouma got a half-chance to score a goal from headers but those were handled safely by the Sevilla keeper, Yassine Bounou.
The group stage match saw a battle of defence as surprisingly after a long time, the Blues witness a goalless match. Not conceding a goal in recent weeks shave been very surprising unfortunately as due to the recent form of Lamaprd’s backline. It was one such surprising night.
Julen Lopetegui’s defence restricted Chelsea’s attack and the Blues managed to have only six attempts in goal. It was the lowest attempt by the Blues ever since the Paris Saint Germain Champions League match in 2015.
It was the first start for Chelsea’s Timo Werner and expensive winger, Kai Havertz and both failed miserably to find the sight of a goal in the whole match. It was a quiet night for Hakim Ziyech and American star winger, Christian Pulisic too. But on the other hand, Chelsea’s defence led by the Brazilian defender, Thiago Silva showed much maturity and improvement after their disastrous 3-3 draw against Southampton in the previous match.
Both the appearances of Thiago Silva and Edouard Mendy calmed the nerves of Chelsea’s error-prone defence. The return of Senegalese keeper, Edouard Mendy has been the most crucial as he made a good first-half save of a deflected shot going into the net. Although his return to the first team was unpredictable, he did eventually after the injury.
The former Rennes keeper was positive in his distribution and very confident while collecting the crosses in the box. Mendy always fisted away Sevilla’s three attempts and blocked an awkward header rolling into the net in the first half.
The whole game saw neither side making a breakthrough to open the scoreline. After the initial burst at the starting 15minutes of the second half, Pulisic began to threaten and Werner had one decent long-range chance to score.
It was an even game and both the teams shared a point with each other.
