In a mostly dominant possessive performance, Chelsea comfortably beat a rejuvenated yet still error-prone Fulham side 2-0 at Stamford Bridge.
After a couple of recent missteps for Sarri’s Chelsea, including a pretty humbling trip to Wembley that ended in a 3-1 victory for Tottenham Hotspur, this was exactly the kind of victory that they needed – they did not need to expend too much energy to push aside a Fulham team that, despite winning in Ranieri’s first game, may have hoped for a challenge like this a bit further into the new managerial reign.
Chelsea back to winning ways – but tougher tests lie immediately ahead
Maurizio Sarri described this performance from Chelsea as ‘tense’ in his post-match press conference and perhaps that betrays the realisation from the team of what lies ahead – a home tie with last year’s runaway leaders Manchester City.
This performance felt like a warm-up in a number of ways; although Chelsea’s keeper had to make a couple of important saves, most noticeably after a dangerous corner in the second-half, Fulham’s sloppiness in the pass helped Chelsea take an early lead which did not require them to wake up to keep. Sunday’s game fails to tell us much about how Chelsea will deal with City’s threat – what is much more revealing is the way in which their back four failed spectacularly to deal with the pace and power of Tottenham last week and a change of plan is required if Chelsea are to change their fortunes.
Fulham still have positives to take going into a huge game with Leicester
In the two games since Ranieri has been appointed, he has led them to a win in a must-win fixture and avoided embarrassment in a derby that they were outmatched before the first whistle – a good start to his tenure. They put up a decent enough effort at Stamford Bridge but lacked the necessary quality to properly trouble Chelsea; an injury to André Schürrle on Friday as well as another uncharacteristically sloppy performance from Jean Michaël Seri, whose early blunder gave Chelsea a perfect start that made Fulham’s task unassailable from the get-go.
It would have been interesting to see how Fulham’s plan, structured around containing, would have worked, but early mistakes saw that plan go to waste immediately. The importance of the upcoming home game against Leicester is only compounded by the fact the game after is a difficult trip to Old Trafford; home games will be the key for both Ranieri and Fulham if they are to lift themselves off the bottom.
Loftus-Cheek takes his chance…
Eyebrows were raised in the summer when Chelsea refused to let Ruben Loftus-Cheek, the exciting young English midfielder, go out on loan for another season in order to build up his fitness and his ability. He had a successful loan spell at Crystal Palace last season and the club were more than keen to take him back, but Chelsea felt that he may get more chances in the first-team than expected under Sarri. While first-team appearances in the league have been sparse, particularly with the surprising re-emergence of Ross Barkley as a midfield option, Loftus-Cheek is still clearly benefiting from playing with an elite-set of players, a point proven with the excellent give-and-go play between himself and Eden Hazard that led to Chelsea’s second goal. It was an excellent cameo-appearance against Fulham and after the midfielder’s recent hat-trick in the Europa League as well as a goal in this game, he has already surpassed the amount of goals scored for Crystal Palace last season.
…But Morata fluffs a chance of his own
It is rare to see a pair of strikers so different in styles and confidence being rotated so heavily at a top team, but it seems to be a constant question asked by Sarri as to whether it is Olivier Giroud or Alvaro Morata who begins the game at the tip of the attack for Chelsea. Giroud scored some excellent goals in the mid-week Europa League game but was frustrated here and yet his performance ended up looking positively dazzling compared to a pretty disastrous cameo from Alvaro Morata – as always, the Spaniard is his own worst enemy, getting needlessly frustrated at the officials and himself, missing a golden chance after being set up by Eden Hazard and finally getting booked in a childish manner.
Under Sarri, Morata has given the Chelsea fans hope that he could retrieve his old confidence and make the starting spot his own but too often his mentality is too fragile and his temper is too great for him to build any of his own momentum. The shadow of Diego Costa, the goal-scoring, bullish, powerful striker who Antonio Conte let go, still looms large at the Bridge.
Aboubakar Kamara starkly highlights Fulham’s need for better depth
A lot has been made of Fulham’s pretty disastrous summer spending spree and the need to rectify this in January but actually Ranieri is giving the fans reason to believe that they might have just enough to stay up with the current starting eleven – his early decision to stick to a consistent back four has already improved their performances, and the fire-power up front of Mitrovic, Sessegnon and Schürrle seems talented enough to win points on their own. The problem immediately apparent at the moment is the lack of game-changers coming off the bench in situations like today; Aboubakar Kamara is a frustrating player at the best of times and today’s half-time substitute cameo proved why perfectly.
In the Championship, particularly in the play-off games, Kamara proved an irresistible threat on the counter but his clumsiness is so often his downfall, his sloppiness in the pass and touch that let him down so badly. Fulham need players to make an impact off the bench, they need multiple options in attacking positions, and perhaps it is in their depth, not in their starting quality, that improvements will be prioritised.
