Chelsea's Defensive Chaos: Alonso's Challenge
All the noise around Xabi Alonso’s Chelsea is about what they do with the ball. The patterns. The rotations. The goals. And with JP Morgan in this form, it’s easy to see why. Nobody has stopped them scoring this season; at least one goal in every league game so far.
But you can’t attack your way out of defensive chaos forever. Not in this league.
Chelsea’s 2-2 draw with Hull at Stamford Bridge underlined the problem that keeps dragging them back. This wasn’t a one-off lapse. It was the 20th Premier League match in a row in which their back line has been breached. Twenty. For a club that once built its identity on clean sheets, that number screams.
Emi Martinez was supposed to be part of the solution. A World Cup winner, a multi-time Yashin Trophy winner, a goalkeeper signed to bring authority and presence. Yet if the defenders in front of him keep switching off, he may as well be Robert Sanchez all over again. The names change. The issues don’t.
Hull didn’t need to weave intricate patterns to hurt Chelsea. Their 1.32 expected goals told the story of a side that were dangerous without ever needing to be spectacular. Too often, chances arrived on a plate. Loose marking. Slow reactions. Gaps where there should have been bodies. Chelsea invited pressure and then looked surprised when it arrived.
The contrast with their attacking potential is stark. When they click, this team can look devastating, waves of blue shirts swarming forward, combinations snapping into place. There is a sense that something exciting is being built in the final third.
But Alonso has lived the other side of this game. He has seen, under Jose Mourinho, what a title-winning structure looks like: compact, ruthless, suffocating. If he wants this Chelsea to be more than just a fun watch, he has to drag their defensive standards up to that level. The attacking project is taking shape. The defensive one can’t wait much longer.
Iraola’s Liverpool hit their first real wall
Anfield was bouncing in midweek. Andoni Iraola had just claimed the first Champions League win of his coaching career, and not against just anyone – Atletico Madrid were the victims. That felt like a milestone that was always coming at some point this season.
The bigger question sat just around the corner.
Could Iraola’s high-intensity football survive the grind of a packed calendar? At Rayo Vallecano and Bournemouth he impressed without European football clogging the schedule. Liverpool is a different world: more games, more travel, more demands on the same legs.
Fulham at home, on paper, looked like a fixture to manage. In reality, it exposed the strain. Liverpool laboured to a 0-0 draw, never quite hitting the tempo that defines Iraola’s style. They started flat and stayed there for too long, unable to sustain pressure or turn possession into clear chances. Fulham didn’t just hang on; they fully deserved their first point of the campaign and, at times, looked just as likely to steal all three.
Yes, Iraola’s unbeaten run as Liverpool boss continues. Stretch it back to his Bournemouth days and he hasn’t lost a league game since the first week of January. The numbers sound impressive. The details are less flattering. Home matches against Nottingham Forest and Fulham have produced only two points. For a team with Liverpool’s ambitions, that isn’t close to enough.
Fatigue was always going to be the obvious talking point, and Iraola didn’t duck it. “In the end, this is the easier one, for me, for you, for everyone – our players were tired,” he admitted. “I think there is a lack of freshness, definitely. We cannot hide it.
“I think it's the worst turnaround in terms of 60-something hours between the games, after a very big game the other day. But this is going to happen more times, maybe with one more day, maybe.”
The schedule won’t ease up. The style won’t compromise easily. Somewhere between those two realities, Iraola has to find a way to keep Liverpool running.
Spurs spend big, but still search for a finisher
Tottenham’s problem is brutally simple. They don’t score. And if you don’t score, you don’t win. That is why Spurs are still without a league victory this season, stuck in a drought that has now stretched to 400 minutes without a goal.
The irony is that creativity is not the issue. Ange Postecoglou – or in this case, Roberto De Zerbi at the helm – has a wealth of inventive players. Against Everton, Spurs had their creators on the pitch. They had runners. They had possession. What they didn’t have was a reliable finisher to turn all that into something tangible.
The 0-0 draw with Everton was a study in frustration. Spurs probed, recycled the ball, tried to shift the Toffees out of position. Yet the man meant to finish the moves barely left a footprint on the game. Dominic Solanke, the only true number nine available to De Zerbi, felt essential before kick-off. By full-time, his absence in the contest was the story.
His selection isn’t really a choice. It’s a necessity. Solanke is the only out-and-out striker in the squad, the one expected to carry the goalscoring burden. When he’s fit, he has to start. But whether it was rust from recent setbacks or simply a game that passed him by, he offered far too little as the focal point.
Nineteen touches. That was Solanke’s total involvement. Fewer than Kinsky in goal. For a centre-forward in a team desperate for a breakthrough, that number is damning.
Spurs have spent heavily to reshape this squad, to add flair and options in midfield and wide areas. Until they solve the problem at the sharp end, all that investment risks being undermined by a single, nagging question: who is actually going to put the ball in the net?
