“In that way…” – Pundit on why Milan were a perfect test for Chelsea ahead of Premier League kick off | OneFootball

Chelsea took on AC Milan yesterday in their second and final friendly of the summer, and post game the London is Blue podcast discussed how much of a success it had been as a preparation game.

Milan’s athleticism gives Chelsea a solid runout

Trevoh Chalobah winces in pain as he puts weight on his injured ankle in a preseason friendly against AC Milan.

“They have some real athleticism in that [Milan] group, and there were a couple of times where we did get caught out and it looked a little weird, a little uncharacteristic because of how dominant we’ve been over the last stretch. But I think it’s also a good reminder that we’re about to play at Premier League speed in less than a week now, and Premier League speed is just a whole different ball game,” presenter Nick Verlaney said.

“Just having someone like Reece James having to stretch his legs and get back on a few of those transition opportunities. Trevoh Chalobah, before he went out, having to really stretch himself and all these sorts of things. It’s just what they’re going to have to face playing a counter attacking Crystal Palace team who love to spring those traps. It was a good mini test in that way, that we can’t take our foot off the gas.”

You can see them speaking in the clip embedded here:

Red card hurts Chelsea as well as Milan

That was the downside of the opposition going down to ten men so early on Sunday – it didn’t provide the physical test it could have done.

Still, as these podcasters point out, they still put up a good fight, and given we were changing players throughout the game and across both of the weekend’s matches, it did at least get everyone up to a solid baseline of fitness.

We can still very much imagine looking a little off the pace compared to Palace, who played in the Community Shield at the same time.