The former Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti embraced his assistants to celebrate a first home win for more than two months while the current custodian surveyed a crestfallen scene at Goodison Park.
Frank Lampard’s players, almost to a man, dropped to their knees when the final whistle sounded on their first defeat in 18 games. The Premier League summit had been in sight again but a resilient, spirited Everton display kept it out of reach.
Gylfi Sigurdsson’s cool first-half penalty, awarded after the goalkeeper Édouard Mendy flattened the relentless Dominic Calvert-Lewin, condemned Chelsea to a third successive loss at Everton and a first defeat in any competition since the second weekend of the campaign.
The visitors dominated possession and struck the woodwork twice but this was not a performance to strengthen talk of title aspirations. Without the injured Hakim Ziyech, Christian Pulisic and Callum Hudson-Odoi, Chelsea lacked the invention and penetration to hurt an Everton defence that belied its makeshift composition to keep a first clean sheet since the opening weekend of the season.
Ancelotti pulled his son, Davide, and Duncan Ferguson into a hug on the final whistle as they savoured only a second win in eight matches.
“I keep reading we have the strongest squad in the Premier League,” Lampard reflected. “I just don’t understand that. The teams around us have won the Premier League and the Champions League and have experienced players who score 30 goals a season.
“We have players who have won championships but we are a young squad and a work in progress. Nights like tonight can happen. I don’t like it but they can happen.”
Fierce backing from the 2,000 Evertonians inside Goodison, who greeted the Z-Cars theme with a tumultuous roar and made a remarkable noise throughout, played its part in a home display that combined defiance with potency on the counterattack. Lampard’s side started brightly, with Kai Havertz and Reece James combining purposefully on the right.
The visitors controlled possession with a confidence befitting their recent unbeaten run but Everton looked dangerous whenever they put the Chelsea defence under pressure. Alex Iwobi was particularly sharp on the right wing. An all-central defender back line of Mason Holgate, Yerry Mina, Michael Keane and Ben Godfrey, a right-footer filling in at left back, were outstanding throughout. Full report here
No comments:
Post a Comment