Chelsea’s best player in Newcastle defeat wins 5 duels but can’t help team win | OneFootball

Chelsea went 1-0 down to Newcastle after less than two minutes today, and before long they were down to ten men too after Nicolas Jackson got himself sent off.

Strangely, the Blues actually played better with ten man than they had with eleven – although ultimately it was pointless as the Magpies eventually grabbed a second goal to seal it.

Defender steps up – but it’s not enough

Levi Colwill puts in an immense block on Bruno Guimaraes. (Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)

One player who can really hold their head up as a top performer was Levi Colwill. This has been the season where he became an every game regular, and this was one of his best performances.

He was immense in the second half in particular, as he had to defend huge open spaces as Chelsea’s ten men stretched themselves to try and equalise.

Despite being up against some serious pace

Colwill by the numbers as Chelsea dig in

Enzo Fernandez (6.9) and Moises Caicedo (6.9) were given a higher rating than Colwill (6.5) by stats site WhoScored, but we couldn’t agree with that at all. The defender was clearly our man of the match. He made 3 tackles and a team high 4 clearances, as well as a last man tackle which kept his team in the game.

SofaScore had him down with an impressive 5 of 7 duels won too.

As always, he was great on the ball too. He had the third highest passes of outfielders on the team with 48, and he played 3 accurate long balls, the joint most of any outfielder.

What a shame it was all for nothing. Let’s hope he and Trevoh Chalobah can keep up this form into our final games against Manchester United and Nottingham Forest in the next two weeks our slim chance of Champions League qualification rely on them stepping up.