BAD TO WORSE
Tuchel fumes as Chelsea beaten for 3rd time in 17 days
CHELSEA’S rotten start to the season continued last night with a shock defeat in their Champions League opener at Dinamo Zagreb.
Thomas Tuchel brought in PierreEmerick Aubameyang for his Blues debut but they went behind inside 13 minutes, with Mislav Orsic continuing to torment Premier League sides. Orsic scored winning goals against Chelsea’s London rivals Tottenham and West Ham last year and streaked away on the break to beat Kepa Arrizabalaga. The goal condemned Tuchel’s side to a third defeat in 17 days.
‘It’s underperformance from us and it’s the same story,’ said Tuchel. ‘At the moment everything is missing.’
CHELSEA cannot say they were not warned. The threat of Mislav Orsic should be wellknown by now after his exploits against English clubs in Europe.
Dinamo Zagreb coach Ante Cacic had discussed the financial disparity between the two clubs and their leagues and insisted money is not everything.
And so it proved as Dinamo Zagreb, on a historic and famous occasion for them and nightmare one for Thomas Tuchel, condemned Chelsea to defeat in their Group E Champions League opening game.
Orsic has already been the scourge of the Premier League’s London clubs, with a Europa League hat- trick against Tottenham in 2020-2021 and a group-stage winner against West Ham in the same competition last year. The one-time Burnley target can add Chelsea to his list of scalps after this.
He and strike partner Bruno Petkovic, combined additions of about £1.5million, gave Chelsea’s new-look and multi-million pound defence a thoroughly difficult evening and inspired Dinamo to a victory they might not have even dared to dream about before kick-off yesterday.
In doing so they helped underline the problems facing Tuchel.
While Dinamo defended for their lives and attacked when they could, Chelsea look a long way from being a cohesive unit.
And having embarked on a record-breaking transfer spree during the summer, expectations of Tuchel and his team have ramped up.
For all the players Tuchel has at his disposal, quantity is not yet translating into quality.
One game into this season’s Champions League campaign and they are already facing an uphill task. Kepa Arrizabalaga started in goal as a knee injury ruled out Edouard Mendy, even though the Senegal keeper was named on the bench and fully involved in Chelsea’s warm-up.
It gave Tuchel another chance to look at Kepa and take Mendy out of the firing line after a number of recent mistakes.
Up front, Pierre- Emerick Aubameyang was handed an eagerly anticipated debut following his deadline-day move.
He started promisingly, linking up with Raheem Sterling once and displayed flashes of the runs behind and movement he was signed to give Chelsea.
At first, it appeared that one of the biggest mistakes Zagreb would make was trying to attack Chelsea and therefore creating space for them to raid on the counter.
And so it proved when following a Chelsea counter Kai Havertz fizzed in a cross which was just too far ahead of Aubameyang.
But then, having posed little threat, Orsic did to Chelsea what he had previously done to their cross-city rivals.
The move was impressive, too. Left- sided defender Robert Ljubicic fired the ball forward to Petkovic who flicked it on before Chelsea defender Kalidou Koulibaly could get to him.
The ball fell perfectly into the path of Orsic, who raced away from a sluggish Wesley Fofana and
poked a finish past Kepa in the Chelsea goal.
Only two of the four Stadion Maksimir stands were occupied by Dinamo fans with their East Stand closed after being deemed unusable following a 2020 earthquake.
You would not have known based on the noise that erupted when Orsic struck.
Understandably, the Croatian side took huge encouragement from it, enjoying more possession and dangerous moments as the half went on while Chelsea’s threat faded.
Fofana had a particularly difficult Champions League debut and fared no better than Koulibaly did against Petkovic. The 27-year-old
Petkovic teed up Orsic again but he couldn’t sort his feet out to find the far corner.
Captain Arijan Ademi had a wellhit shot pushed away by Kepa and Orsic saw another attempt blocked by Ben Chilwell.
A half-time change from Tuchel saw Cesar Azpilicueta withdrawn for Hakim Ziyech and with it their shape changed for the first time as they started to throw more and more bodies forward.
Aubameyang had a goal chalked off for offside and his replacement — following his substitution after an hour — Armando Broja, tested Dinamo keeper Dominik Livakovic from a narrow angle.
Chelsea also appealed in vain for a penalty after Havertz was bumped in the back.
For all that, it was Dinamo who went closest when Stefan Ristovski let fly from distance and only a fingertip save from Kepa, pushing the ball on to the bar, denied him a goal.
Chelsea spent the final stages camped in Dinamo territory trying to equalise.
Havertz had a header deflected over by Ljubicic, Reece James hit the post and Livakovic made a double save to keep out efforts from Mason Mount and Ziyech.
Ziyech, it turned out, was offside but it didn’t matter. That moment summed up the heroic effort put in by Dinamo, as did their emotional and deserved celebrations on the final whistle.