Wolves 2 Chelsea 1: Blunt up front, Sterling’s bad miss, Nkunku offers hope

Chelsea’s poor form continued with a 2-1 defeat at Wolverhampton Wanderers, epitomised by yet another blunt attacking performance.

Raheem Sterling missed a fantastic first-half chance to give Mauricio Pochettino’s team the lead and the visitors paid the price for their lack of ruthlessness.

Mario Lemina headed the first in the second half before Matt Doherty scored a late second, consigning Chelsea to a fourth successive away defeat, before Christopher Nkunku opened his account for the club.

Here are the key talking points.

What was most worrying about the performance?

There is some real competition for the best answer here.

Could it be Nicolas Jackson and Armando Broja contriving to not even conjure a threatening shot attempt from several promising first-half opportunities? Could it be Sterling scandalously fluffing the clearest chance of the match?

Could it be Chelsea being physically bullied at a set-piece again, and conceding the first goal for the 30th (yes, 30th) time in 50 matches across all competitions? Could it be the collective losing of heads after going behind, with Thiago Silva and Axel Disasi both falling over the ball as the last man? Could it be the lack of real ideas about how to turn the tide in the final minutes?

Ultimately, the most worrying thing of all is probably that five months into Pochettino’s tenure, Chelsea are still regularly being undone by deeply familiar failings.

We all know that injuries have slowed this process and that youth almost across the board makes errors inevitable but, while things are not necessarily getting worse, they certainly are not improving.

As can be seen from Jackson’s touch map from the game…

… and Broja’s…

… there is much to work on up front. Nkunku’s stoppage-time consolation reinforced the idea that he can make an immediate difference, but it is difficult to imagine him fixing all that ails this team.

More of the same

As can be seen above in The Athletic’s match dashboard from the game, Chelsea dominated the ball and created some good chances, but failed to punish the opposition. Sound familiar?

Talk to us about this picture…

No team in the Premier League has missed more of what Opta define as ‘big chances’ than Chelsea in the 2023-24 season. This was their 36th and in many ways, the sequence that led to it encapsulates this talented yet maddeningly flawed team.

Committed, coordinated and intelligent pressing helped turn a defensive corner kick into a three-v-zero break in the 32nd minute, with Sterling pouncing brilliantly on a poor Jose Sa pass to dispossess Joao Gomes as the last man. Jackson, having led the initial charge, and Cole Palmer, who had helped funnel Gomes into a turnover, made themselves available.

It is as close to a certain goal as you could ever dream of generating in the Premier League, but Chelsea in 2023 have pushed the boundaries of what we thought was possible when it comes to bad decision-making and execution in the final third.

Sterling could have given Palmer or Jackson an empty net, or even taken the ball round Sa as Eden Hazard loved to do in such situations. Instead, he telegraphed a tame shot towards the middle of the goal. Either he did not recognise the correct decision, wilfully ignored it or simply did not trust his team-mates to convert a simple chance.

All are deeply concerning, but also par for the course for this Chelsea team.

Jackson’s bookings for dissent are a problem, aren’t they?

Three months have passed since Pochettino pulled Jackson aside at Cobham to talk about his inexplicable indiscipline.

“I had a meeting today (Friday) with Nicolas and Enzo (Fernandez),” Chelsea’s head coach said in September. “I said, ‘Come on, a striker with four yellow cards for protesting?’. You need to get yellow cards but in different actions, not for that. Not so easy, so cheap. It’s going to put him in a very difficult situation with the team.”

Pochettino’s words seemed to have an effect in the medium term — after four bookings in his first five Premier League appearances, Jackson was shown two in his next 10. But frustration brought about a regression at Molineux, compounding a performance that underlined Jackson’s broader lack of progress at Chelsea.

The overall goal return in his first season in England has not been disastrous for a 22-year-old (eight in 21), but Jackson appears to have lost rather than gained confidence and still appears utterly unwilling to shoot first time when the situation calls for it.

That is a bigger issue than his tendency to talk too much when things are going poorly, which simply provided the cherry on the cake of another miserable afternoon against Wolves.

What next for Chelsea?

Wednesday, December 27: Crystal Palace (H), Premier League, 7.30pm GMT, 2.30am ET

One of the few teams struggling more than Chelsea, Palace have only picked up three points in their last six games.

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(Top image: Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images)