The return of the Portuguese Joao Félix and the presence of the Argentine Enzo Fernández as the axis of the midfield is still not enough for him to go back to the Chelseawho gave up a gray away draw in the London derby against West Ham, who is fighting to get away from the relegation zone of the English League.
Joao reigns, but still does not rule. Ahead of the Ukrainian Myjailo Mudryk (100 million euros) or even Enzo Fernández himself (121 million), the Portuguese is the boss of this new Chelsea -the one who has five winter reinforcements in his eleven that do not exceed 22 years per those who have paid more than 250 million euros-, but lack continuity to be decisive.
With freedom to move around the field and an interventionism that he did not have at Atlético, the entire game of Graham Potter’s team is structured around the Portuguese, who gave a recital in the first half; He scored a goal -after a great pass from Enzo Fernández-, another was disallowed, he threw free kicks, corner kicks…
Joao had time to make up for his sour debut in the Premier -sent off at 58 minutes against Fulham-, but Chelsea maintains imbalances that still prevent them from capturing the enormous talent they accumulate on the field. Mudryk often only looks forward – and Cuccurella suffers on defense – and Enzo’s weight as a pivot is still intermittent.
West Ham, hard pressed by classification, was shaken at the beginning by the outpouring of their rival and by the injury to the Brazilian Lucas Paquetá at quarter of an hour, but they reacted before half an hour, achieved the tie thanks to the opportunism of Emerson Palmieri -formerly from Chelsea- and arrived alive at half-time thanks to a couple of good interventions from Lukas Fabianski to shots from Noni Madueke and Joao Félix himself.
Then David Moyes, who is one win away from joining Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger as the only managers with at least 250 Premier League wins, found a way to switch off the Portuguese and Chelsea lost control of the game in a second half. in the only the VAR, which annulled a goal by Soucek in the 82nd minute for offside by Declan Rice in the previous shot, prevented him from a major setback, to save a point that leads him to wander through the middle zone of the table .
Onto Wednesday. 🤝 pic.twitter.com/N2qeziQEkC
— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) February 11, 2023
