Premier League - Chelsea v Crystal Palace
Central: Eberechi Eze
Chelsea Football Newsletter
Chelsea Football Newsletter
Chelsea came into the tie off the back of a brief but encouraging pre-season campaign, where they beat both Bayer Leverkusen and AC Milan, but could not carry that form into competitive play.
Crystal Palace pipped Liverpool to the Community Shield in their previous outing and were high on confidence on arrival at the Bridge.
It was unclear ahead of kick-off whether Eze would start at all as he is reported to be in talks over a move to Tottenham, but he shone at Stamford Bridge, and saw a piledriver of a free-kick goal ruled out in the first half after the video assistant deemed Marc Guehi to be too close to the Chelsea wall.
Estevao Willian and Liam Delap both made their Premier League debuts for Chelsea in the second half and there was a late flurry of goalmouth action, but the Blues could not find the all-important breakthrough after struggling for attacking impetus for much of the match.