Palmer return not enough to break stalemate, as Chelsea endure winless week

Bournemouth 0 v Chelsea 0

By Kaz Mochlinski at the Vitality Stadium

Premier League

Matchweek 15

Chelsea’s sudden stumble continued as they suffered a scoreless Saturday afternoon stalemate on the South Coast in a forgettable draw with Bournemouth which made it three consecutive winless matches in a week.

The Blues’ high point so far this season when they beat Barcelona 3-0 in the Champions League 11 days ago has been followed by a failure to repeat such fireworks in any of the subsequent domestic league games.

A creditable 1-1 draw with Arsenal despite having Moisés Caicedo sent off, a humbling 3-1 loss at Leeds United, and now another abject away day without a goal at Bournemouth, in a short space of time have seen Chelsea go backwards quickly.

“We couldn’t win, but at least we kept a clean sheet, so we couldn’t lose” was head coach Enzo Maresca’s surprisingly upbeat assessment afterwards, in contrast to his view in Leeds that he could see no positives from that performance in midweek.

On this windswept day down in Dorset, the two goalkeepers were the main candidates to be named as the man-of-the-match, with Đorđe Petrović determined not to concede against his old club, and Robert Sánchez confirming his substantially improved form.

Not even Cole Palmer’s return to the starting line-up for the first time in almost three months, nor Estêvão Willian’s introduction off the substitutes’ bench with around a quarter of an hour remaining, could materially change the outcome.

Palmer had been out with groin and then toe injuries since 20th September, when he came off at Manchester United. He had managed half-an-hour or so as a substitute at Leeds and now got around an hour from the kick-off.

In between, he had missed eight Premier League games, and a total of 14 matches in all competitions, over the course of an 11-week lay-off. His appearance at Bournemouth was only his third league start of the season.

Perversely, Palmer’s presence has not produced positive results for Chelsea. He also started when they last failed to score, against Crystal Palace in the opening game of the campaign, which was their previous 0-0 draw.

After that the Blues went on to find the net in 20 successive matches, including 13 in a row in the Premier League. With two outings off the bench in the league, and a start in Europe, Palmer’s record so far is played six, won none, drawn three, lost three.

Trying to perform when not fully fit is a factor, but fitting in to a constantly changing team is another issue. For Bournemouth, Maresca made six alterations to his side, the most between Premier League matches this season.

It was reflected in a first half where Chelsea did not even have one attempt on target or force Petrović into a single save, despite 65% possession. After the interval, they eventually began to play less like strangers and really tested the Bournemouth keeper.

That was not aided by losing Liam Delap to a serious-seeming shoulder injury while defending a corner, wrestling Marcos Sensi, to whom he had already earlier given a couple of nudges to physically try and get the upper hand in their personal duel.

Having experienced a long absence due to a hamstring strain at the start of the season, Delap’s Chelsea career will now be compromised further by another extended recovery period. Since August, he has only six times been in the gameday XI.

Delap scored in the Club World Cup during the summer, and again against Barcelona, but he is still searching for his first goal in English domestic football, as is his replacement at Bournemouth, Marc Guiu. Neither looked likely to strike this time.

A year ago, Chelsea managed to escape from Bournemouth with a win thanks to an 86th minute goal by Christopher Nkunku with an assist from Jadon Sancho, both players who are no longer at the club.

There is a case to be made that Chelsea are weaker now than at that time, when also noting the involvement of Levi Colwill, Noni Madueke, and João Félix in that visit last September. Without them, the Cherries versus the Blues this time was goalless.

Bournemouth: (4-2-3-1) Petrović - Smith, Diakité, Senesi (Hill 62), Truffert - Scott, Tavernier - Jiménez (Adli 74), Kluivert (Brooks 74), Semenyo - Evanilson (Enes Ünal 87)

Chelsea: (4-1-4-1) Sánchez - Gusto, Fofana, Chalobah, Cucurella - James - Neto, Fernández, Palmer (João Pedro 58), Garnacho (Estêvão 77) - Delap (Guiu 31)

Attendance: 11,240