Every Little Thing is Gonna Be All Right - Chelsea Leave it Late Again at Selhurst Park

All of the key points from the late late show against Crystal Palace once again.

Chelsea won their second away game in less than a week by a scoreline of three goals to one after last night's crucial victory against an injury-hit Crystal Palace side. 

A late winner from Conor Gallagher for the second year in a row, and then another from Enzo Fernandez won Pochettino’s men all three points and secured back-to-back 3-1 away wins. 

However, it couldn’t have been more different from our incredible performance at Villa Park, especially in the first half where I’ve not seen a more flat and sideways performance from any Chelsea team that I can remember. 

We had one shot in the first half compared to Palace’s six shots and we created 0.00 xG which is completely pathetic. 

It looked like Poch had slipped into his old ways again and the midfield especially was not working, even though we had the same personnel as we did against Villa where we dominated the midfield battle. 

Moises Caicedo effectively had to drop into a third centre-back role to help Silva progress the ball which left a huge gap between himself and Enzo which we know causes us huge problems. 

Silva’s involvement caused a lot of friction among Chelsea fans because he’s such a loved player by the majority of the fanbase, but he is a complete passenger these days and really doesn’t help the team much anymore.

It may seem harsh that I constantly dig Silva out as he’s been a great player for the club and one of the best free transfers of all time, but we all saw the difference Levi Colwill made in terms of build-up when he came on, it’s night and day. 

Silva did pick up an injury so we’ll have to wait and see what happens but it's back-to-back groin injuries to centre-backs after Benoit Badiashile picked one up against Villa. 

We went into half-time 1-0 down and there was already a sense of ‘one step forward and two steps back’ from our FA Cup victory at Villa Park. 

Credit to Pochettino, we came out in the second half looking hungry and there had clearly been some clever tactical tweaks. 

Christopher Nkunku replaced the frustrating Noni Madueke which meant Cole Palmer went out to the right-hand side and looked much more effective, also, he fixed the midfield issue and it meant that the whole structure of the team looked much better. 

After a long technical delay, which saw the Crystal Palace DJ play Three Little Birds by Bob Marley which helped birth a new Chelsea chant, Chelsea came rushing out of the blocks and Gallagher settled the nerves with a brilliant finish to put us level.

It wasn’t our best half, but it was a huge improvement from the first half and we eventually got the job done in added time. 

It’s annoying that Poch didn’t get it right from the start but it’s good to see him rectify his mistakes. 

Enzo and Caicedo didn’t play their best game, but they were both involved so much which dramatically increases our chances of winning.

Caicedo played a role in all 3 goals, setting players away after winning the ball and Enzo managed to score again.

When they’re close together, they can make stuff happen, it’s as simple as that. 

They completed a combined 208 passes which is 47 more than the entire Palace side. 

Another player who deserves a mention is Malo Gusto. He is so influential in this team both defensively and going forward. He claimed his seventh assist in all competitions last night and was up and down that right flank all evening. 

On Gusto, he did request to be substituted which is a slight concern but Poch said it was due to tiredness. I’ll believe it if I see him in training this week as we’ve seen players randomly disappear all year. 

Levi also looked like he was struggling so we await news on him.

Cole Palmer had a quiet game by his standards but managed to add two more assists to his catalogue of goal contributions this season. Yesterday's contributions take him up to 21 goal involvements in all competitions this season which is amazing as it’s only February. 

What a signing he’s been at only £40m. 

Two huge games coming up next, I doubt we beat City at the Etihad this Saturday but we need to take some kind of confidence from that game going into the Carabao Cup Final on the 25th against Liverpool. UTC.

By Will Reyner