The game began with an Everton ball forward, but then settled into the expected pattern of Chelsea trying to break down the visitors’ massed ranks inside their own half. They certainly weren’t going to be baited into any sort of press!
Unsurprisingly, Chelsea weren’t exactly making great inroads against them, though we also were in just about no danger of conceding and maintained solid control over proceedings.
It’s often long-range shots that can unlock such defenses, and that was precisely the case here, with Nicolas Jackson finding the bottom corner from outside the box just before the half-hour mark, after Noni Madueke almost did the same earlier.
The pattern of the game remained unchanged after the half time break, with Chelsea creating a few half-chances and Everton sitting back. Jackson nearly doubled our lead after a poor backpass sold the goalkeeper short, but otherwise clear cut chances were nonexistent.
Everton served a reminder of the fragility of our lead after a careless pass out from the back led to nearly a carbon copy of our goal, but Sanchez is taller than Pickford and made the save from Beto.
Chelsea seemed to run out of legs and any real attacking impetus as we headed into the final 20 minutes, instead settling in, playing it safe — we even took all out goals kicks long! — and trying to see out the narrow win.
Thankfully, that’s precisely what we would do.
Carefree.
- Lavia returns and so does the Caicedo at (inverting) right back experiment; James drops out in the only change from last weekend; Lavia gets a little over an hour, with James then coming on for him
- Jackson’s first goal in over four months (half of which he spent injured); into double digits for the season now in the league (and overall); back-to-back seasons with double-digit goals: first striker since Diego Costa to do so (Hazard and Palmer have also done it in the meantime)
- Enzo takes over the team lead from Jadon Sancho with his 11th assist in all competitions
- 10 corners for Chelsea, barely a hint of danger
- Chelsea up to fourth, but Newcastle play later today and Nottingham Forest play midweek; still, at least keeping pace; two of our remaining four games are against them two
- 8 unbeaten at home in the league
- Everton still haven’t won at the Bridge since 1994
- Next up: Conference League semifinal first leg, away at Djurgarden on Thursday
- KTBFFH
