No place for the Christmas break in the Premier League. An English custom for decades, Boxing Day has not yet started but the 18th day of this 2023-2024 season served as a dress rehearsal. On this occasion, Chelsea traveled to the pitch at Molineux Stadium in Wolverhampton this Sunday. Having been able to count on the return of Christopher Nkunku for a few days, the Blues nevertheless saw the French attacking midfielder sit on the bench at the start of the match. However, Mauricio Pochettino decided to line up three Frenchmen at the start of the meeting with Malo Gusto, Lesley Ugochukwu and Axel Disasi. In the first period, the debates were balanced. While the association between Armando Broja and Nicolas Jackson was unsuccessful during the first act, Raheem Sterling missed the biggest opportunity of the first 45 minutes by negotiating a 3 against 0 very poorly (33rd)…
Overall Premier League standings
#
|
Team
|
Pts
|
J
|
DIF
|
G
|
NOT
|
D
|
BP
|
B.C.
|
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
7 |
|
29 |
18 |
14 |
9 |
2 |
7 |
36 |
22 |
8 |
|
28 |
18 |
-5 |
9 |
1 |
8 |
18 |
23 |
9 |
|
27 |
18 |
3 |
7 |
6 |
5 |
34 |
31 |
10 |
|
22 |
18 |
1 |
6 |
4 |
8 |
29 |
28 |
11 |
|
22 |
18 |
-7 |
6 |
4 |
8 |
23 |
30 |
12 |
|
22 |
17 |
-8 |
6 |
4 |
7 |
24 |
32 |
13 |
|
21 |
18 |
-5 |
6 |
3 |
9 |
26 |
31 |
See the full ranking
Returning from the locker room, the Londoners continued to be dangerous. However, and especially after the entries of Nkunku and Madueke, the residents of Stamford Bridge displayed a glaring lack of automatisms. And against Wolves who know each other by heart in front of a white-hot audience, that is paid in cash. While Lesley Ugochukwu almost made a mistake in the area following a disputed contact, the locals opened the scoring thanks to a helmet hit from Mario Lemina (1-0, 51st). Increasingly dangerous as the minutes passed, the visitors were finally punished in the final moments of the match. On a smoothly conducted counterattack, Matt Doherty left Djordje Petrovic no chance (2-0, 90+3rd). The Blues, generally poorly paid after having controlled the ball throughout the match, regained hope at the very end of the match thanks to Christopher Nkunku’s first goal under the tunic of the capital club. Despite this late burst of pride, the Blues finally lost and saw their opponents of the day come back to match (22 points). Wolverhampton thus climbs one place and is now eleventh while Benoît Badiashile’s teammates remain tenth.