Chelsea‘s depressing run of kind continued on the Amex Stadium as their Champions League aspirations had been dealt one other blow with a 3-0 defeat to Brighton and Hove Albion.
The Blues made the journey to the south coast having seen their winless run within the Premier League prolonged to 4, every of these defeats coming with out them scoring a objective.
And that dismal streak was stretched to 5 as Brighton leapfrogged them into sixth within the desk with a well-merited victory. It’s the first time since 1912 that Chelsea have misplaced 5 successive league video games with out scoring.
Ferdi Kadioglu opened the scoring within the third minute and, regardless of failing to take additional benefit of their first-half dominance, the Seagulls accomplished a double over Chelsea as Jack Hinshelwood doubled their benefit within the 56th minute.
Chelsea by no means appeared like mounting a comeback and Danny Welbeck added late gloss to the scoreline as he capped an excellent night time for Brighton in type as they moved two factors away from the Blues.
Liam Rosenior’s beleaguered facet stay seven factors behind fifth-placed Liverpool within the race for the top-five place that might assure qualification for Champions League.
Liverpool can stretch that hole to 10 by beating Crystal Palace on Saturday, which means that Chelsea will probably be left hoping Aston Villa can win the Europa League and switch sixth place right into a Champions League spot. After a efficiency through which they didn’t handle a shot on track and with Brighton in this sort of kind, even a top-six end seems to be fanciful for Chelsea proper now.
Chelsea lower aside by good Brighton
Brighton began brilliantly and, after Kaoru Mitoma noticed a far-post half-volley brilliantly turned over by Robert Sanchez, the hosts opened the scoring from the ensuing nook.
The supply to the close to put up was headed away by Jorrel Hato, however solely so far as Kadioglu, whose highly effective drive left Sanchez with no probability.
Sanchez was required to provide one other superb save to tip over a Jan Paul van Hecke header, however the former Brighton goalkeeper was nearly left red-faced as he despatched a move straight to Carlos Baleba, with solely the intervention of Trevoh Chalobah on the objective line stopping Hinshelwood from making it 2-0.
Chelsea had been considerably improved to start out the second half, however a staff lacking Joao Pedro, Cole Palmer and Estevao by no means really threatened to discover a manner again into the competition.
And so they had been caught on the counter following certainly one of their sporadic forays ahead, with Brighton breaking quickly after handball claims towards Yankuba Minteh had been waved away.
Sensible work from Georginio Rutter gave Brighton a two-on-two, and he teed up Hinshelwood to double the lead with a composed end.
Kadioglu was then twice denied by a pair of Sanchez saves earlier than Alejandro Garnacho and Marc Guiu noticed alternatives go begging for Chelsea, whose depressing night time was accomplished when Welbeck fired in from Maxim De Cuyper’s pull again.
The FA Cup seems to be Chelsea’s most probably path to salvaging one thing optimistic from a marketing campaign that’s falling aside. However amid their terrible run of kind, a win over Leeds United in Sunday’s semi-final is way from a assure.
