Graham Potter lost his first match as a Chelsea on Saturday as Chelsea were thrashed 4-1 by Brighton at the Amex.
Chelsea conceded an early goal in 5 minutes through Leandro Trossard’s strike and could have been more if not for Thiago Silva’s double off-the-line clearance. The Blues concede another two goals before the break after unfortunate own goals by Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Trevoh Chalobah in the 14th minute and 42 minutes respectively.
Kai Havertz reduce the deficit to two after the break but Brighton held their grounds very and extended their lead to four through Pascal Groß.
Potter’s decision to deploy Raheem Sterling and Christian Pulisic as winger backs against Brighton had been criticized by many pundits and fans. Sterling and Pulisic inability to track back exposed the Chelsea three-men defense as they were found wanting whenever Brighton breaks the Chelsea press.
Arsenal Icon Ian Wright has slammed Graham Potter over his selection of Raheem Sterling and Christian Pulisic as winger’s backs in their 4-1 defeat to Brighton.
What did Ian Wright say?
The former Premier League striker explained on BBC Match of the day: “Well the wingbacks. We’ve seen they’ve used a variety of wingbacks this season and when you look at their bench they’ve got [Cesar] Azpilicueta and Ben Chilwell.
“But they started with Pulisic and Sterling and I found that very confusing.
“And when you watch what they do, and when you look at the positions they were taking up, they weren’t really helping Chalobah or Cucurella or Thiago Silva.
“And what was happening was they [the three center-backs] were getting pulled all over the place.
“Chalobah is way too far up, there’s no real cover because Pulisic isn’t coming back and helping, or Sterling wasn’t coming back and helping, and Brighton were [getting in behind] all the time.
“Everything Brighton did, look how far Silva has to come in, all the way in with Trossard, Cucurella the left-sided center-half comes over [to the byline], and then you know there’s a load of space behind.
“On a couple of occasions, [Ruben] Loftus-Cheek is the one who has had to try and go in there [to cover at center-back] to rescue the situation.
“Brighton would go down the middle, work it out wide, Chalobah comes in and gets beaten very easily, and then bam [ball in behind] every single time. And this is a problem for them.
“And like I say, they’ve got full-backs on the bench that can play that position and give more cover.
“You see Pulisic here, there he is, he’s with his man, his man is going on the outside of him now, but Pulisic switches off and they rightly get punished for it.
“The center halves had a terrible day today because they were dragged all over the place and they had a poor game.”
Asked if the tactic of deploying Christian Pulisic and Raheem Sterling as wing-backs should be done away with, Wright added: “Yes. I don’t want to dress that up.”
