Chelsea’s new-look attack fails to deliver in first Premier League outing as Blues play out lacklustre draw with Crystal Palace | OneFootball

Chelsea might have looked imperious in the Club World Cup, but they were toothless in their Premier League opener against Crystal Palace which finished goalless.

Stamford Bridge was an expectant place prior to the game, with fans buoyed by the club’s summer on and off the field. They have moved to revamp their attack, with new signings Jamie Gittens and Joao Pedro both starting the game, and Estevao and Liam Delap later being introduced off the bench.

But the performance against Palace disappointed and certainly dampened the pre-match optimism around the stadium.

The biggest moment of the game came when Chelsea were handed a let-off in the 13th minute, when Eberechi Eze thumped a free kick into the goal, only for it to be ruled out. It was a brilliant strike, but unfortunately for the Eagles Marc Guehi was ruled to have been too close to the wall when the free-kick was taken.

A point of concern for Chelsea was that, while the free kick was well-struck, it was very close to Robert Sanchez, near the middle of the goal, and should probably have been saved. Either way, the Spaniard made up for the mishap six minutes later when he pulled out a brilliant stop to deny Jean-Philippe Mateta from close range.

By and large, it was drab game, with both sides struggling to put attacking sequences together and clearly not in regular rhythm. For Chelsea, the performance was a far cry from their comfortable pre-season wins over Bayer Leverkusen and AC Milan, but shows why you do not make too many judgements from pre-season.

The first bit of real excitement for the Blues arrived when Estevao came on for Jamie Gittens in the 54th minute. His first action was to skip past Will Hughes on the right and deliver a teasing cross into the middle, and he certainly made his side look more dangerous.

Much has been made of the depth of Chelsea’s squad for a few years, but they have now refined the quality to a point where substitutes late in games are good enough to potentially be decisive.

One can only imagine how Tyrick Mitchell and Guehi felt when they saw Estevao coming on with little over half an hour to go, and Delap as the replacement for Joao Pedro would have induced similar fear into the Palace backline.

On this occasion it did not work, but Chelsea are still bedding in new players and could have well won the game in the dying embers, but Delap and Andrey Santos each missed glaring opportunities in the final seven minutes.

It was a disappointing result for Maresca and his side, especially given the hype they had generated before a ball was kicked. They will have the chance to register their first Premier League win next Friday against West Ham.