Chelsea kick the season off with a win against Everton

Chelsea started the season with a win. The Blues visited the Toffees at Goodison Park in what promised to be a hard-fought game and so it proved to be. Chelsea join the likes of Bournemouth, Leeds United, Newcastle and Tottenham who have all started their season with three points. 

There were high expectations for Chelsea and a sense of excitement about the start of the Blues' new project after Todd Boehly's takeover of the club. Despite the departures of Christensen, Rudiger and Lukaku, the London club managed to strengthen in the market with signings such as Sterling, Koulibaly and Cucurella. Tuchel decided to field both the former City winger and the former Napoli defender in the starting eleven. Cucurella also made his debut after coming on in the 75th minute.

The first half was hard fought. After a first few minutes in which Everton made it difficult for Chelsea to get the ball out of their own half, defender Godfrey suffered a bad injury after trying to win the ball back from Mount. The centre-half was replaced by Holgate and from then on Chelsea began to control the game and even earned 10 corners in 35 minutes. 

Despite Chelsea's control, there were no clear goalscoring chances in the first 45 minutes for either side with the exception of a great save from Mendy after a good header from Tarkowski. However, eight minutes of injury time was added to the game due to Godfrey's injury and, before the end of the first half, Doucoure conceded a penalty on Chilwell which Jorginho managed to score to give Chelsea the lead.

 

August 6, 2022

The second half started the same as the first, the home side came out playing better than the Blues but as time went on Chelsea ended up controlling the game. Everton continued their bad luck after Godfrey's injury with another injury, but this time it was Yerry Mina, a hard blow to the Toffees' defence.

In addition, the recent Spanish former Brighton player Marc Cucurella made his debut in the 75th minute after replacing Chilwell. The same full-back made a good play with Sterling who ended up finishing inside the box but Mykolenko was able to clear the ball on the goal line.

Moreover, in the 85th minute there was a medical emergency in the stands so the match was stopped for 3 minutes. Because of this, 10 minutes were added to the match but despite Everton's non-stop attack, the home side failed to score an equaliser.

 

August 6, 2022