Chelsea endured a frustrating start to the new Premier League season as the Blues were held to a goalless draw by Crystal Palace at Stamford Bridge
15:57, 17 Aug 2025Updated 16:02, 17 Aug 2025
Enzo Maresca
Enzo Maresca would have been far from encouraged by Chelsea's performance
Chelsea were held to a goalless draw by Crystal Palace in a frustrating afternoon for all involved at Stamford Bridge.
The Blues returned to Premier League action, aiming to begin their campaign, which harbours hope of a title challenge after being crowned World Club Cup winners in America last month.
But it was a far from encouraging start as the Blues found themselves second best to Palace’s energetic play and survived going a goal down after just 12 minutes when Eberechi Eze saw his free-kick ruled out by VAR.
Marc Guehi infringed within one metre of the Blues' wall as he bundled Moises Caicedo out of the way, allowing Eze to smash his dead-ball effort through Robert Sanchez from the edge of the box.
Chelsea got away with it massively, with Guehi’s actions not having any impact on the four-man Chelsea wall, but regardless of how anti-goal the law is, it had to be enforced.
Eberechi Eze disallowed free-kick goal vs Chelsea
Eberechi Eze's free-kick was ruled out
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The Blues wrestled back control of the game but couldn’t force a clear-cut chance in a first-half void of significant goal-mouth action.
Maresca clearly gave his Chelsea players a dressing down at half-time as the Blues emerged on the front foot, seeing Palace largely penned in throughout the early proceedings, attacking their fans behind the goal.
But the Italian had seen enough from an uninspiring Premier League debut for £48.5million signing Jamie Gittens, hooking the England U21 international in the 53rd minute for the exciting Brazilian teenager Estevao.
And he produced an immediate improvement as his driving run and cross down the right almost set up Pedro Neto to break the deadlock. Despite the chance ultimately coming from a fortunate bounce into his path, he had the Matthew Harding End on its feet for the first time this season.
Estevao
Stamford Bridge got its first look at Estevao(Image: Chelsea FC via Getty Images)
With Eden Hazard watching on from the stands, the expectation surrounding Estevao couldn’t have been better put than the TV camera panning to the former Chelsea hero.
But his first sight of goal was not to be the dream moment as he clumsily controlled the ball with his midriff, attacking a cross before slicing an off-balance left-footed effort miles over the bar and into the stand.
That chance was one that had to be taken with the wind going out of the Chelsea sails as Palace threatened on the counter-attack and the Blues’ play soon turned laboured and too slow.
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Looking for an injection of fresh enthusiasm, Maresca introduced Liam Delap for Joao Pedro, who you would’ve been forgiven for not realising he wasn’t playing – making just 10 passes and having 22 touches. Delap’s introduction was far too late – being given just 15 minutes to find something.
After Estevao again woke the Stamford Bridge crowd up by collecting the most obvious yellow card of all time for scything down Daniel Munoz on the counter-attack, another debut was given to fellow young Brazilian, Andrey Santos, who shone on loan at Strasbourg last season.
Delap had to wait until the 88th minute for his first sight of goal as he latched onto a bouncing ball inside the penalty box, but his tame volley bounced straight into the hands of Dean Henderson, as so disappeared the penultimate chance of the game before Santos ballooned his effort over the bar in added time.
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A bizarre game that ebbed and flowed between the two teams despite nothing significant being created. It was far from the entertaining spectacle many fans were hoping for from these two teams.