West Brom end Tuchel’s Blues honeymoon in emphatic style
OF all the ways in which Thomas Tuchel’s serene opening sequence at Chelsea might have come to an end, this was one nobody envisaged.
Walloped at home, conceding five against a West Bromwich Albion team with a goal allergy and seemingly doomed to the drop even before they rolled into Stamford Bridge, a ground where they had not won a league game since 1978.
Tuchel had negotiated his first 14 games without defeat. Not only that, he had seen his side concede only twice in that time, and one of those two was an own goal. And there seemed little cause for alarm when Christian Pulisic tucked away the rebound from a Marcos Alonso free-kick to open the scoring.
But once Thiago Silva was sent off, the unravelling began in spectacular style. Chelsea collapsed into a nervous wreck as West Brom were transformed into cool and clinical counter-attacking killers, seemingly capable of scoring at will.
‘Hey, we won’t be on last today will we,’ guffawed Allardyce as he took up his position for a post-match interview with BBC’s Match of the Day. It was a reminder of how he built his reputation by roughing up the Premier League’s elite and revelling in it.
‘We demolished a Chelsea team undefeated since the new manager arrived and you can’t say it’s because they were poor or went down to 10 men,’ he said. ‘It was down to the quality of our performance. We totally outplayed Chelsea.’
Chelsea could be sixth after West Ham play Wolves tomorrow and must find a response ahead of the Champions League quarter-final against Porto in Seville on Wednesday.
Tuchel took responsibility for his decision to rest players based, he insisted, on a lack of preparation time, rather than with Porto in mind.
Silva returned after 11 games out injured but was sent off for two yellow cards with less than half an hour of the match gone.
His first offence came when Jorginho played a careless pass out of defence and straight to Matheus Pereira, who was hauled down by Silva before he could reach the penalty box. The VAR checked for a red card but found in favour of the
Chelsea defender, although his escape was short-lived as he collected his second yellow for a late challenge, as he lunged feet-first in an effort to block a shot by Okay Yokuslu.
It was a bad day for returning veterans. Branislav Ivanovic, who spent nine years at Chelsea, came off the bench to replace Dara O’Shea. He was only on the pitch for 13 minutes when he tore a hamstring.
Allardyce reacted by risking another attacker in Callum Robinson and was duly rewarded.
The equaliser came from a long kick by keeper Sam Johnstone, not attacked by defenders in blue and gratefully picked up by Pereira, who executed a neat lob over Edouard Mendy.
Pereira pounced for his second after Mbaye Diagne gathered the ball and set the forward off on another jinking run ending with another cool finish.
Tuchel’s response was to send on Mason Mount for Pulisic and the ten men poured forward, but West Brom protected their lead. Semi Ajayi typified the spirit with a vital goal-line clearance.
Robinson scored the third, an exquisite volley to convert a very good cross by Darnell Furlong.
It was his fourth Premier League goal. All of them have been against Chelsea and his fifth came in stoppage time to complete the rout. In between, Diagne scored West Brom’s fourth with a crisp strike and Chelsea pulled a goal back through Mount.
CHELSEA (3-4-2-1): Mendy; Azpilicueta, Silva, Zouma; James, Jorginho (Havertz 72), Kovacic, Alonso; Ziyech (Christensen 33), Werner; Pulisic (Mount 46). Subs (not used): Arrizabalaga, Rudiger, Giroud, Hudson-Odoi, Chilwell, Gilmour.
WEST BROM (5-3-2): Johnstone; Furlong, O’Shea (Ivanovic 24)(Robinson 37), Bartley, Ajayi, Townsend; Phillips (Livermore 89), Yokuslu, Maitland-Niles; Pereira, Diagne. Subs (not used): Button, RobsonKanu, Diangana, Peltier, Snodgrass, Grant. Referee: D Coote.