Chelsea’s scoring streak in the Premier League came to an end on Saturday night when they were held to a frustrating 0-0 draw by Bournemouth. The draw at the Vitality Stadium was a messy game. Enzo Maresca’s team had most of the ball, but they couldn’t find clear openings against a strong Cherries defense. It also didn’t help that Liam Delap injured his shoulder and had to be taken off, making matters worse for the Blues.
Chelsea are now in fourth place and need to figure out what went wrong after not scoring for the first time since their 0-0 draw with Crystal Palace on the first weekend of the season. For Andoni Iraola’s Bournemouth, the point is a good response after losing to Everton in the middle of the week, but they are still in the bottom half of the table.
Bournemouth started the game off better than the other team and thought they had scored after just five minutes. Semenyo scored a great goal at the back post after a messy buildup with Trevoh Chalobah, but the celebrations were cut short when VAR stepped in to punish Evanilson for being offside.
The home team kept threatening, with Semenyo forcing a sharp save from Robert Sanchez and Evanilson missing a golden chance on the rebound, somehow failing to score at the back post.
After the break, Chelsea got better and better, and Garnacho came very close to breaking the tie. The winger got his head on a cross from Pedro Neto that floated in, but it hit the near post.
Later in the half, Marc Guiu also missed a big chance when he shot over the crossbar from inside the box after being set up by Marc Cucurella. Bournemouth almost won at the end when Alex Scott drove into the box, and Sanchez had to make a save, but the game ended in a tie on the south coast.
Stats for Bournemouth and Chelsea
The numbers from the Vitality Stadium show that the visitors weren’t any real threat to their hosts when they had the ball. Chelsea had 65.1% of the ball in the first 45 minutes, but Bournemouth had the better chances. The hosts had an Expected Goals (xG) score of 1.22 in the first half, a significant difference from Chelsea’s 0.22.
This shows how much better the Cherries’ direct attacking play was than the visitors’ dull possession. Enzo Maresca’s team didn’t have a single shot on target in the first half, which shows how hard Chelsea was having it in the final third. They were having trouble testing the goalkeeper, even though they had the ball a lot.
In the second half, the situation was hardly different, although Chelsea picked up more xG (0.66) than Bournemouth (0.17). They also had more shots on goal than the hosts in the latter 45 minutes.