Premier League: Early return leaves Chelsea feeling blue

IN A typical example of the pundit's curse strikes again, I speculated that Liverpool would struggle this season if they did not address their lack of depth in midfield. Mere hours later, they took to the field at Anfield and proceeded to run up a record-equalling 9-0 victory over a brutal Bournemouth side.

Result aside, I stand by this belief, which was, I feel, confirmed in Liverpool's struggle to get the better of Newcastle in their midweek clash.

Despite dominating shots, possession, and passing stats, Liverpool needed to go all the way till the 98th minute to break Geordie hearts with Carvalho's opportunist winner.

It seems that the early return to season action has played hard on their preparations and Liverpool are not the only side that seems to be struggling to get to the pace of the season. West Ham, Leicester, Spurs and most notably Chelsea have also looked leggy in their performances so far. Maybe these sides are struggling to recover from the impact of domestic and European action with an early return.

Chelsea's start, in particular, is quite out of character for a side that, it must be remembered, won the Champions League a mere 18 months ago.

Patchy form

The Pensioners have lost two, drawn one, and won two in their opening five games. The wins were single-goal margins against fellow strugglers Everton and bottom-placed Leicester. While their defeats, to Leeds and Southampton, would have been seen as embarrassing setbacks if played in any of the past four or five seasons.

The Leeds defeat will be of special concern for Chelsea fans as the hard-working Yorkshire men hounded the Londoners off the field in a throwback of the famous confrontational matches between the sides back in the 70s. That Leeds managed to hold them scoreless was the most telling aspect of the game, while Leeds scored three from their three attempts on target.

In Tuesday's Southampton game, Ralph Hasenhüttl’s Saints man-marked Chelsea out of the game again. While Chelsea had a big portion of possession, it was Southampton that made the most of their time on the ball, again outshooting the more illustrious side from London. What was concerning for Chelsea in this game was the way they gave up control of the game despite taking the lead. Something they have rarely done in recent seasons. Thomas Tuchel admitted after the game that Chelsea had, "meekly surrendered the lead".

Chelsea's best match of the season so far was arguably the 2-2 draw with Spurs. The furious confrontations between Tuchel and Antonio Conte grabbed the headlines but it was probably the game that Chelsea showed the most heart this season as the derby sides fought for supremacy. But even here, Chelsea were pegged back twice from positions of being in the lead, giving up the second equaliser to Harry Kane in the 96th minute.

Chelsea have spent heavily this summer, but apart from Raheem Sterling, they have little so far to show for all the money they have spent.

Missing influences

Meanwhile, star performers over the past few seasons like Jorginho, Mason Mount, Kai Havertz have struggled to raise their game this season. Like Liverpool, who struggle in midfield whenever Thiago is injured, Chelsea too struggle to get the best out of their centre-park setup whenever talismanic N'Golo Kante is injured.

Chelsea also seem to be struggling to organise themselves defensively this season too. This may explain their uncharacteristic concession of goals this season. One cannot underestimate the loss of Antonio Rudiger to the side. A player who was seriously underrated in the Premier League for the great work he did at centre-back. The absence of the German has been telling when you look at how easy some of the goals were conceded by Chelsea this season.

Kalidou Koulibaly, Wesley Fofana and Marc Cucurella are all good players, but Chelsea's need of a defensive reorganisation has been obvious since the end of last season, with the departures of Rudiger and Andreas Christensen for Real Madrid and Barcelona known well in advance of the final whistle. But it looks like they have not had the time to implement it successfully.

Maybe the war sanctions, earlier, on the then club owner Roman Abramovich and the messy sale of the club, along with other off-field matters, may have had more of an effect on the players and management than we initially thought.

Or maybe, like Liverpool's loss of Sadio Mané, it is simply not that easy to replace an integral part of a team all that easily, no matter what money you throw at the solution.