Tuchel happy as Chelsea kickoff season with victory at Everton | OneFootball

Chelsea opened the Premier League season with victory over Everton as Jorginho's penalty decided a scrappy contest at Goodison Park.

Thomas Tuchel introduced summer signings Kalidou Koulibaly and Raheem Sterling from the start but it was one of Chelsea's established stars who settled affairs when Jorginho rolled a composed penalty past Jordan Pickford in first-half stoppage time following Abdoulaye Doucoure's foul on Ben Chilwell.

Everton, without a recognised striker following the sale of Richarlison and injury to Dominic Calvert-Lewin, battled gamely but were woefully short of quality and threat in attack.

Tuchel said afterwards, "A win is a win and this is super important. We played at Everton and we've struggled over recent years to get points here. We have things to improve but this isn't a. surprise. Most of the time I'm happy with the first half, the second we lost too many balls and weren't as dominant. We struggled physically but showed the spirit to get the clean sheet.

"There were some situations nobody could influence like s big injury for an Everton player [Ben Godfrey], the incident in the stands and we created confusion with the substitutions. Some things that maybe occur once in four weeks occurred in one match; there were seven minutes stoppage time first half, 10 in the second. It shows how disrupted the game was for both teams. It won't have been nice to watch."

Click here to support Tribal Football by being paid to use social media.