Chelsea’s Thrilling Attack Faces Defensive Woes

Xabi Alonso’s Chelsea are quickly earning a reputation as the team you can’t keep quiet. The problem is, they can’t keep anyone else quiet either.

They have scored in every league game this season, JP Morgan again at the heart of everything in the 2-2 draw with Hull at Stamford Bridge. Nobody has worked out how to stop Chelsea from finding at least one goal. You just can’t rely on that to cover the cracks when the back door keeps swinging open.

This isn’t a quirk of the new regime. It’s a long-running fault line. Hull’s equaliser means Chelsea have now gone 20 Premier League matches in a row without a clean sheet. Twenty. For a club that built title-winning eras on defensive steel, it’s an uncomfortable number.

Alonso has been backed to fix it. Emi Martinez, a World Cup winner and multiple Yashin Trophy recipient, has arrived to add authority behind the back line. On paper, it’s elite reinforcement. On the pitch, it looked like déjà vu.

Martinez could have been Robert Sanchez for all the protection he received. Hull didn’t have to produce anything especially intricate to rack up 1.32 expected goals – a tally that accurately reflected how often Chelsea left the door ajar. Too many chances came gift-wrapped: loose marking, poor positioning, basic defensive errors that undercut all the attacking promise at the other end.

That attacking potential is obvious and genuinely exciting. The patterns are there, the movement is sharp, the goals feel inevitable. But Alonso didn’t just learn how to build front-foot football under Jose Mourinho. He also saw, up close, what a ruthless defensive structure looks like and how it underpins everything.

If Chelsea are serious about challenging, that part of his education has to come to the fore. The goals are flowing. The clean sheets have vanished. Until that balance shifts, this team will remain as vulnerable as it is entertaining.

Liverpool stumble when the schedule bites

Anfield bounced on Wednesday night. Andoni Iraola finally had his first Champions League win as a head coach, against Atletico Madrid no less, and Liverpool rode that wave.

But that European breakthrough was always coming. The real question was how Iraola’s Liverpool would handle the grind that comes with it.

At Rayo Vallecano and Bournemouth he impressed with intensity, structure, clear ideas. He did it without the extra weight of European football. This season was always going to test whether his high-tempo style could survive the relentless turnarounds.

Fulham at home, three days after Atletico, was the first proper examination. Liverpool failed it.

They started flat and stayed that way. The trademark Iraola tempo never really arrived. Fulham grew into the game, settled, and by the end were as likely to win it as the hosts. Their first point of the campaign was fully deserved in a 0-0 that felt more like a warning sign for Liverpool than a blip.

Iraola’s unbeaten run as Liverpool manager remains intact, stretching back to early January if you fold in his Bournemouth finish. The numbers, though, are less flattering. Home fixtures against Nottingham Forest and Fulham have brought just two points. For a team with Liverpool’s ambitions, that’s nowhere near enough.

Asked whether fatigue was the main culprit, Iraola didn’t dodge it.

“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 will not relent. The games will keep coming, the expectations will not dip. Iraola has his principles, his style, his unbeaten run. Now he has to find solutions when the legs are heavy and the margins are tight.

The test he faces next won’t be any kinder.

Spurs have spent big – but still lack a ruthless No 9

Tottenham’s problem doesn’t need a deep tactical breakdown. It’s written on the scoreboard. You cannot win if you do not score.

Spurs have gone 400 minutes of league football without a goal. That drought explains why they are still searching for their first league win of the season. The pattern is maddening: plenty of craft, no finish.

Against Everton, the pitch was full of creators. Spurs had guile between the lines, players able to thread passes and shift defenders. Yet the man tasked with turning all that into something tangible barely left a footprint on the game.

Dominic Solanke’s importance to this squad is already glaring. He is Roberto De Zerbi’s only true out-and-out No 9. When he’s fit, he almost has to start. Not because he’s in unstoppable form, but because there is no genuine alternative profile in that position.

Right now, that reliance looks more like a weakness than a weapon.

Whether it’s rust from recent setbacks or a deeper issue with rhythm and understanding, Solanke offered far too little as the focal point in the 0-0 draw. Nineteen touches across the match. That’s all. The goalkeeper, Kinsky, had more involvement.

For a side built around fluid, attacking football, that statistic is damning. Spurs have invested heavily, reshaped the squad, stocked it with technicians and runners. Yet the most basic requirement – a centre-forward who can dominate, demand the ball, and decide games – remains unsolved.

Until that changes, all the pretty patterns will keep breaking down in the one area of the pitch that really matters.