Brighton & Hove Albion – Chelsea: Rosenior to be Relieved of His Duties? (0-3)

At the club where his playing career came to an end, Liam Rosenior might have met his knell in the dugout for the latest club he is coaching. Though it is not only his responsibility, Chelsea continue to spiral downwards, while Brighton build belief of another adventure into Europe.

Tactical analysis and match report by Emmanuel Adeyemi-Abere.

Chelsea continue to crack under the ownership of BlueCo. They were emphatically eliminated from the Champions League, losing 8-2 on aggregate against reigning champions Paris Saint-Germain. Domestically, affairs have fallen flat: four back-to-back defeats against Newcastle United, Everton, Manchester City and Manchester United have witnessed eight goals fly into the back of their own net without a single reply. Could the clincher for their fate come at a familiar spot for their head coach?

Brighton & Hove Albion are in their latest purple patch. Since a 1-0 defeat against Arsenal at the start of March, they have taken ten points from their next four Premier League fixtures, beating Liverpool and drawing with Tottenham Hotspur in the last month. This form has fired the team to eighth place in the table, only a point behind Bournemouth, Brentford and their visitors for this fixture. Qualification for continental competition is a possibility in a packed mid-table, but a strong streak must stay intact.

Fabian Hürzeler had decided to change three members of the lineup that he selected for the 2-2 stalemate at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Despite returning to the matchday squad from his suspension, Lewis Dunk remained on the bench, so Olivier Boscagli partnered with Jan Paul van Hecke in central defense. Carlos Baleba displaced Yasin Ayari in the midfield, and Kaoru Mitoma came in for the injured Diego Gómez, while Georginio Rutter replaced Danny Welbeck upfront.

Liam Rosenior rotated two men in the starting eleven he picked after their defeat to Manchester United. The introduction of Trevoh Chalobah into the backline meant the guests set up with five in the rearguard, while Roméo Lavia landed a role in the middle of the park along with Moisés Caicedo. The firepower for the visitors was drastically reduced: Cole Palmer and Estêvão were absent because of hamstring injuries, and João Pedro failed to pass a late fitness test for this fixture against his old club.

Brighton blast out of the blocks

Chelsea could not have imagined a worst start to this showdown. Brighton were in control of the ball, and Pascal Groß rolled out in his classic maneuver to the right flank, firing a delivery towards the far post. A run from Hinshelwood attracted the attention of Malo Gusto, and Mitoma had the space to test Robert Sánchez with a volley. From the subsequent corner kick, Chelsea could not clear their lines, and the ball dropped for Ferdi Kadıoğlu to tuck away the first goal of the game in three minutes.

14^th minute: offensive sequence from Brighton. Van Hecke received the ball from Wieffer, and he set the ball wide to Groß. Chalobah had been instructing Lavia to block the path to Hinshelwood, then he pointed out to Hato that Minteh was on his shoulder. Van Hecke continued to advance into the penalty area since Baleba was present in a deeper position, but Lavia did not check his shoulder and there was no active reassignment of coverage to the left of Fofana, allowing the defender to head freely.

Rosenior’s men failed to liven up. The once-hailed trio of Lavia, Caicedo and Enzo has seldom featured together on the field because of injuries for the Belgian midfielder, but the porous state of this trio was shown again: Caicedo can be clumsy in the timing and angling of his tackles while Lavia can be found to be guilty of switching off when shadowing key spaces. Baleba put himself about, helping to produce the biggest chance to double the advantage in this flurry of an attacking phase.

Baleba kept shifting forward to engage the press, and as Sánchez attempted to pass the ball out from the back, the midfielder cleanly intercepted the ball, pivoting to pass towards Hinshelwood. However, his teammate could not connect from a firm stance, allowing Chalobah to drop off onto the goal line.

27^th minute: offensive transition from Brighton. Baleba hooked the ball away from Hato, who had carried forwards into the midfield, and Mitoma led a counterattack. Ideally, Caicedo could direct the flow of the attack or delay it from shifting to the right, where Groß had advanced and Hinshelwood was taking the attention of Lavia. However, Chalobah had already turned to his left to track Minteh, followed him as the deepest threat and then poked out his right boot to intercept an attempted pass.

Little bang for buck in the attack

Without their three highest quality attackers, the visitors were always going to suffer in the final third. Their frontline had a clear right sided bias because of the positioning of Neto as well as the tendency for Delap to drift to that side of the pitch to trigger his channel runs. However, the deficiencies of both players were evident. Direct service suits Delap’s game the most, but he struggled to stabilize himself in isolated duels; for Neto, it was again a case of uncreative and poor-quality actions around the box.

At the start of the second half, Rosenior attempted to correct the problems on the field. He hauled off Fofana, who had been booked on the verge of the break, and Alejandro Garnacho got on the pitch. There were a few more successful phases of play that flowed through Enzo, but productivity was missing, and one such sequence set up the hosts to take away the game from their opponents.

47^th minute: offensive sequence from Chelsea. Lavia and Enzo shifted the ball towards the left flank, where Garnacho gave the team a more offensive option than Marc Cucurella. However, he could not separate conclusively from Wieffer, and Lavia lashes the layoff from the winger far over the target.

Garnacho got tackled as he tried to shift infield on his stronger right foot at the edge of the box, and within two passes, the central defenders were exposed once more. Rutter ran at the backline, biding his time and eventually picked a pass to his left to release Hinshelwood. The midfielder found the back of the net, doubling the lead for the hosts and sending the supporters into a celebratory mood.

Hürzeler was happy to draft in the reserves: Maxim de Cuyper came on for Minteh, Welbeck would finish the game upfront, Matt O’Riley replaced Hinshelwood, and Ayari stepped in for Mitoma. Two of those substitutes sealed the deal for the hosts as de Cuyper charged in behind the backline, and Welbeck would emphatically bury his cutback, converting his 13^th goal of the league campaign.

Takeaways

Brighton have banked sixth spot in the table, turning around early season slumps to put themselves into the places for continental competition at the right time. It has been far from a consistent year, and their latest success should mostly be put down to the incompetencies of their opposition, but all that matters at this stage of the season is getting the results to go over the line. If the likes of Baleba, Welbeck and Rutter are fit and firing for the rest of the campaign, European dreams are very realistic.

Chelsea have now suffered their fifth successive defeat in the Premier League, leaving them stuck on a total of 48 points, which is equal to the tally of Bournemouth and Brentford. A top five finish is nearly impossible for the group, and a backdoor entry in exceptional circumstances to the Champions League might not even manifest if the rest of the mid-table pack sucks the side lower down the table. Rosenior seems to be a dead man walking, but BlueCo are the key culprit to blame for this demise.

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