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72 mins: Two changes for Chelsea, who bring Marc Guiu and Dario Essugo on for Delap and Lavia.
71 mins: Brighton fans oléing now. “When Chelsea have the ball, the team is so static, with most players standing still or ambling,” writes Kári Tulinius. “Brighton, by contrast, is side in constant movement, offering up new passing options or creating space by drawing defenders away. The Blues are reliant on individual effort, while the Seagulls put their trust in the collective.
“It’s tempting to say this is capitalism v socialism, but this the Premier League, so it’s billionaires all the way down. But at least socialism is winning on the field.”
70 mins: Chelsea nearly do a thing: Gusto escapes his marker and runs into the area, but Veltman clears his low cross before anyone can have what would have been their first shot on target.
67 mins: From the corner Van Hecke heads wide at the back stick. More changes incoming for Chelsea.
67 mins: Another Sanchez save! This time Kadioglu blasts a shot towards the near post from 20 yards or so, but it’s turned round the post.
65 mins: A curious move from Brighton, who give the ball away three times and win it back within a second or two on each occasion, each time ending up in an improved position as a result. At the end of it all Kadioglu is released by Mitoma, runs into the area, cuts onto his right foot and sends a shot towards the far post, which Sanchez saves.
62 mins: Brighton win a corner on the right, which is headed out as far as Mitoma, who loops it over Pedro Neto beautifully before volleying wide.
60 mins: Mitoma wins the ball on the edge of his own penalty area and runs down the left wing. He’s got no particular place to go, no real support, and is heading off the side of the pitch, when Gusto bumps him from behind and gives Brighton a free-kick.
58 mins: Minteh gets himself a booking by bringing landing his foot on top of Cucurella’s.
56 mins: The ball did bounce up into Minteh’s arm, but probably outside the area, and certainly by accident. His clearance then finds Minteh on halfway, and within 15 seconds it’s in the back of the net.
GOAL! Brighton 2-0 Chelsea (Hinshelwood, 56 mins)
Now Chelsea want a penalty for handball! And while they’re complaining Brighton break, Rutter passes to Hinshelwood, and he sidefoots past an exposed Sanchez!
54 mins: Minteh’s cross hits Cucurella. He says it hit his shoulder, Rutter’s convinced it hit his arm. I’m on Rutter’s side, but the VAR is not, and it would have been a nonsense way to concede a penalty anyway.
54 mins: Mitoma has a shot on the turn inside the area, but drags it wide with his left foot. But we appear to have the green shoots of what might become a competitive football match on our hands.
51 mins: An excellent clearance out of defence frees Pedro Neto, but with half a pitch and Pascal Gross to run at he isn’t sure what to do, and Brighton reset before he makes his mind up.
49 mins: Brighton win a free-kick on the right, which Pascal Gross sends looping straight out of play in a manner that can only be described as hapless.
47 mins: Chelsea have only had a shot! Garnacho carries the ball infield from the left before nudging the ball into the path of Lavia, who shoots high from 20 yards.
46 mins: Play has recommenced with Brighton also making a change, Veltman coming on for Wieffer.
Chelsea are making a halftimely substitution, with Garnacho coming on and Fofana going off.
“The only positive from a Chelsea point of view is that it’s only 1-0,” says Gary Cahill on Sky at the break. Though it’s worth pointing out that Brighton had taken seven shots by the 23rd minute, and didn’t add another before half-time - Chelsea definitely improved. It will be interesting to see whether they reorganise at half-time, dropping the whole back three idea, and whether if they do that leads to another spell of cluelessness and confusion.
“As a Chelsea fan, everything about this team feels rotten,” writes Matt Muir. “A manager out of his depth (poor Liam, he is quite possibly a competent coach but not here and now and this is abject), a bizarre squad built from private equity reasoning and talent agency relationships, and an ownership that seems to think that everyone is moronic and only they understand the 5d chess they are playing on a sporting and financial level. ?!!**& the lot of them tbh. Also, well done Brighton.”
Half time: Brighton 1-0 Chelsea
45+2 mins: A half-time lead for Brighton, an absolute deluge of dross from Chelsea.
45+1 mins: The night’s first booking goes to Fofana, who pulls back Rutter to stop the Brighton forward escaping on halfway.
45 mins: The first half is nearly over already! There’s only going to be one minute of stoppage time.
42 mins: A decent move from Chelsea – yes, you read that right – but Gross slides to clear Cucurella’s low centre, with Delap lurking behind.
40 mins: Minteh nicks the ball on the right wing and sends it rolling to Rutter, whose attempt to pick out Mitoma’s run is not the best, and Sanchez gathers.
37 mins: This has just been so embarrassing for Chelsea, but there’s still only one goal in it. “There’s a saying in Brazil, acabar em pizza (‘to end in pizza’), which is used when there is no resolution to a problem or consequence for a negative action,” writes Peter Oh on the subject of Justin Kavanagh’s foiled fast food order. “I think that makes it pretty much the official food of Fifa! Whoever makes the best one wins the Fifa Pizza Prize.”
34 mins: Chelsea have improved significantly in the last few minutes: instead of Brighton spending most of the game in the Chelsea penalty area, they’re now spending most of it just outside their penalty area.
31 mins: Now Delap does almost nothing, perhaps actually nothing, to Boscagli but he goes down, and the referee is having a word with the Chelsea striker. “If Liam Delap was even half as good at kicking a football as he was at kicking members of the opposition, he would be a world class player,” notes William Cook. “I’d like to apologise in advance to Brighton fans for when he now scores a hattrick.”
29 mins: Fernandez goes down, clutching an ankle and rolling around. The referee comes over and has a word, presumably informing him that he’s not going to get a free kick so he might as well get over it, at which point Fernandez magically recovers.
28 mins: Delap shoulder-barges Baleba off the ball in the middle of the pitch, about three yards from the referee, who doesn’t see anything wrong with it. Baleba bounced off him and stayed on his feet. I’m with the referee on this one, but it’s a sign of Chelsea’s frustration.
24 mins: Chelsea win their first corner of the game, after Van Hecke gets a toe to the ball as Delap carries it forwards. For a moment there Verbruggen was in the middle of nowhere and an early, dipping shot from miles out might just have come off, but Delap didn’t seize the moment.
“Looking at Chelsea’s league and financial positions,” writes David Howell, “it strikes me as awfully amusing that the Harry J Allstars track that plays before kickoff at Stamford Bridge is called Liquidator.”
23 mins: Another corner for Brighton, Minteh’s ball into the box skewing behind off Fofana.
21 mins: Brighton have had six shots, four on target. Chelsea have had none. It has been humiliatingly one-sided.
19 mins: Sanchez nearly gifts Brighton a goal! From nothing and nowhere he calmly sidefoots a pass to Mitoma, inside his own penalty area and to the right (as he’s looking) of his goal. Mitoma squares to Hinshelwood, who doesn’t see Chalobah racing back towards his goalline and is a little casual with his finish, and Chalobah gets back in time to clear.
18 mins: Another Brighton attack, and their problem is that they’ve got too many options. They try to take too many of them, get a bit mixed up, and give it away.
16 mins: In defence Chelsea’s three men are at sixes and sevens. They win the ball in their own penalty area, have no idea what to do with it, lose it almost instantly, and Rutter shoots high and wide. This is shambolic.
15 mins: And a save! From that very same move, Gross crosses, Van Hecke rises, but Sanchez deals with the header.
14 mins: Rutter does an excellent header-while-falling-over on the edge of Chelsea’s penalty area, after winning the ball back.
13 mins: Chelsea get the ball and try to work it around a bit, but Chalobah passes to a space none of his teammates are occupying, and the ball rolls out of play to cheers from the crowd. “I’m watching the game here at home in Philadelphia,” writes Justin Kavanash. “I was going to order in a pizza, but they’ve probably stuck a Fifa World Cup sticker on it at this stage and are charging $100 for delivery. Tea and biscuits, it’ll have to be.”
11 mins: Rutter has a poor shot from the edge of the area, which hits the nearest defender, when Mitoma was available for an easy pass to his left.
9 mins: Chelsea get forward for the first time, and Delap gets down the right, cuts inside, and accidentally rakes his studs down Kadioglu’s leg as the ball is nicked off him. Free kick.
5 mins: I think Hato got a pretty clear shove in the back just before he fluffed that header, and him fluffing that header was instrumental to the goal being scored, and that VAR could therefore have got involved there. But he didn’t, and the goal stands.
GOAL! Brighton 1-0 Chelsea (Kadioglu, 4 mins)
And Brighton score from the corner! It’s swung in from the left, met at the near post by Hato but his clearing header is more of a flick-on, it flies to Kadioglu, and he sidefoots in!
3 mins: And nearly a repeat of Mitoma’s goal at Spurs! Gross crosses deep from the right, Mitoma runs into the area, and his half-volley is on its way in before Sanchez flings out a glove to tip it over the bar!
2 min: Chelsea still have the ball. They’ve had one attack, in which Hinshelwood was brought down a few yards outside the penalty area but it looked like the referee was looking the other way, as presumably were his assistants, so no free kick.
1 min: Peeeeeep! It’s Brighton who get the game under way.
And now they’re out, and they’re about to play football.
The players are in the tunnel. While they’re there, the referee has singled out the two goalkeepers, having a brief chat to each of them individually about … well, I’ve no idea.
And here’s Fabian Hurzeler:
We shouldn’t talk too much about the table, it’s more about our performance, what we want to achieve today. We spoke about consistency, bringing a lot of effort on the pitch, a lot of energy. It’s about controlling the ball in the right way. It’s about breaking them, trying to build good, trying to create chances.
Liam Rosenior has a chat with Sky. He says there will “possibly” be a change of formations, and in their warm-ups they appear to be preparing a back three. In other news:
We need to make sure it’s a really strong team performance. We have a way that we want to play with and without the ball, our principles don’t change, we just need to go out and perform [like] we did against Manchester United, but we have to be better in both boxes.
Cole Palmer has tightness in his hamstring, apparently, hence his absence. Joao Pedro is also spared the burden of looking his former teammates in the eye after they overtake his current employers, with the Brazilian in line to return for this weekend’s FA Cup semi-final against Leeds.
“Are Chelsea now the Spursiest club in London?” asks Gary Naylor. “Or is that Arsenal?” What Spurs would give to be Spursy right now.
The teams!
Get yer team news here! Is that a back five Chelsea have gone with? Looks like it might be.
Brighton: Verbruggen; Wieffer, Van Hecke, Boscagli, Kadioglu; Minteh, Baleba, Gross, Mitoma; Hinshelwood; Rutter. Subs: Ayari, De Cuyper, Dunk, Kostoulas, O’Riley, Steele, Welbeck, Veltman, Igor Julio.
Chelsea: Sanchez; Gusto, Chalobah, Fofana, Hato, Cucurella; Caicedo, Lavia; Fernandez, Pedro Neto; Delap. Subs: Acheampong, Adarabioyo, Dario Essugo, Derry, Garnacho, Marc Guiu, Santos, Sarr, Sharman-Lowe.
Referee: Craig Pawson.
VAR: James Bell.
Hello world! Six defeats in seven games in all competitions, with the one non-defeat an FA Cup win over Port Vale who play in League One and thus doesn’t count, mean Chelsea have all but kissed goodbye to their chances of a place in the top five. Brighton meanwhile have won five of their last seven, all of them in the Premier League. On Valentine’s Day Chelsea were fifth and Brighton 13 points back in 14th; if they win tonight Brighton will go above them. “My job is to be accountable. The buck stops with me,” says the beleaguered Liam Rosenior, whose summer holiday looks increasingly likely to be indefinite in length.
So, and to summarise, actually quite a lot riding on this. Here’s Jacob Steinberg on Chelsea’s sticky spot:
Liam Rosenior has acknowledged his job will be under threat if he cannot turn around Chelsea’s poor form before the end of the season.
Although the head coach recently received public backing from the co-owner Behdad Eghbali, he is aware that retaining long-term support is dependent on results. Chelsea are under growing pressure as four consecutive league defeats have left them seven points off fifth-placed Liverpool with five games to play, and Rosenior was realistic when asked whether his bosses had assured him his future did not hinge on securing Champions League qualification.
“I’ve had many conversations with them,” he said. “It’s a very direct question, I like it. They’re supporting me. They believe in me. There’s one thing I haven’t believed – the reality of the situation. At Chelsea football club, we’ve lost our four last league games. That’s not good enough. So, regardless of what they believe I can achieve with the club in the long term, I need to get results now.”
Much more here:
