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No one who made the journey to Accor Stadium on Tuesday night (in Australia) was expecting a demonstration of defensive rigidity, but ten goals is a truly ridiculous return for a curtain-raiser. Xabi Alonso was in charge of Chelsea in front of supporters for the very first time at the 83,500-capacity venue. The Spaniard fielded a side brimming with academy graduates and the ensuing spectacle was both exhilarating and vaguely alarming for anyone in the back line.<\/p>\n
Chelsea took just six minutes to break down a hosts\u2019 defence that looked porous from the first whistle. Ryan Kavuma-McQueen slid a through ball into the empty channel behind, and Kazakh youngster Dastan Satpayev powered past the Wanderers rearguard to hammer his finish beyond the goalkeeper at his near post.<\/p>\n
The equilibrium, or whatever it was the Blues had found, disappeared with frightening speed as defensive problems surfaced and persisted throughout the game. Some sloppy corner-kick defending allowed Anthony Pantazopoulos to draw level, flicking at the near post and nodding home unopposed at the back post. Aydan Hammond then bamboozled Josh Acheampong with a piece of impudent skill before rifling into the near corner for 2-1.<\/p>\n
Chelsea\u2019s response was emphatic and beautifully constructed as D\u00e1rio Essugo played a slick one-two with Reggie Walsh before caressing his finish into the far corner. In the meantime, Tosin Adarabioyo managed to waste two free headers from set pieces.<\/p>\n
Jo\u00e3o Pedro bullies Wanderers into submission in Chelsea\u2019s second-half carnage<\/h2>\n Xabi Alonso\u2019s interval changes were daring, if nothing else. Omari Kellyman and Mahdi Nicoll-Jazuli came on for Essugo and Kavuma-McQueen, leaving two 16-year-olds to boss the Chelsea midfield against senior professionals. Landon Emenalo, who had been dazzling down the left flank all night, burst forward for a gilt-edged opening, but blazed his effort horribly wide. The Wanderers punished that profligacy as Emenalo\u2019s subsequent clearance ricocheted invitingly to Dylan Scicluna, who sold his marker a delicious feint before burying the shot for 3-2.<\/p>\n
That was the call for the cavalry. Cole Palmer, Wesley Fofana, Marco Palestra, Robert S\u00e1nchez, Jamie Gittens, Levi Colwill, Valent\u00edn Anselmino, Est\u00eav\u00e3o and Jo\u00e3o Pedro all came on, and the contest changed almost immediately. Jo\u00e3o Pedro danced through the left channel and flicked the ball back for Gittens to slide home the equaliser. Chelsea\u2019s defensive weaknesses were still there though, with a woefully weak Est\u00eav\u00e3o pass gifting a fourth for the hosts to teenager Awan Lual.<\/p>\n
Then Pedro just took the game by the scruff of its neck. He gathered inside the box for 4-4 with an age to pick his placement, and was never ever going to miss from there. Later, Palmer split the defence with a pass from around halfway, and Jo\u00e3o Pedro cut the ball back onto his right foot and finished neatly. His hat-trick came from another lazy Wanderers set piece; Fofana\u2019s first shot was blocked before the striker scored from close range.<\/p>\n
The difference between Jo\u00e3o Pedro and Liam Delap, who managed to get a clean touch on the ball in sixty largely anonymous minutes, was frankly uncomfortable to watch. Alonso will love the goals and the youthful exuberance, but the sheer volume of calamitous defending is a verdict on Chelsea\u2019s recruitment priorities.<\/p>\n\n <\/aside>\n \n\t<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
No one who made the journey to Accor Stadium on Tuesday night (in Australia) was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}