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Scoreline: Chelsea 0-0 Lyon; Chelsea win 5-4 on penalties.
Chelsea capped off their International Champions Cup campaign with a win over Lyon at Stamford Bridge last night. The two teams were inseparable at the end of full time after they had failed to find the back of the net and just like in all their previous games of the pre-season tournament, Chelsea had to force the game into penalties.
Maurizio Sarri's men held their nerve to emerge as 5-4 victors in the shootout after all of Jorginho, Ross Barkley, Marcos Alonso, Cesar Azpilicueta and Eden Hazard made no mistake from the spot while Rob Green, who replaced Marcin Bulka in goal for Chelsea in the second half, became the unlikely hero when he stopped Pape Cheikh Diop's penalty to help Chelsea secure a much-needed win in front of the home crowd.
Chelsea will now travel to Huddersfield Town for their opening game of the Premier League season on Saturday while Lyon kick-start their Ligue 1 campaign against Amiens SC at the Groupama Stadium. Without further delay, let's take a closer look at the major talking points from the pre-season clash last night:
#1 Chelsea fall short on the X factor
Chelsea's lack of depth in options while going forward was well exposed by their first half performance against Lyon. Maurizio Sarri dished out opportunities to a number of fringe players including the likes of Danny Drinkwater, Tiemoue Bakayoko, Victor Moses and Tammy Abraham alongside youngsters Marcin Bulka and Ethan Ampadu to go with England's World Cup sensation Ruben Loftus-Cheek.
Despite looking comfortable in possession during the entirety of the first half, Chelsea struggled to find their rhythm inside the opposition's final third as the game petered out into a snooze fest. Abraham, who was expected to step up and perform, struggled in front of goal while also being poor in linking up play with his teammates.
Moses, Drinkwater and Bakayoko did themselves no favours with average performances while the youngsters impressed alongside Loftus-Cheek to give Sarri a rough idea of what he can expect from his squad players in the upcoming season.
#2 Bertrand Traore goes wasteful on Chelsea return
Bertrand Traore, who left Chelsea in the summer of 2017 in a reported €10 million plus add-ons deal, returned to Stamford Bridge last night but could not replicate the same performance that had earned him the plaudits in Ligue 1 last year. The winger was deployed on the right flank and struggled to be on the same wavelength with both Memphis Depay and Mariano Diaz, who completed Lyon's attacking trio.
Traore was wasteful on a number of instances and could not keep his shot on target after cutting in from the flanks and on to his preferred left-foot, an alarming indication during his loan spell at Ajax in 2016 and more recently during his ventures in the Ligue 1. The 22-year-old was signed up by the Chelsea academy in 2010 after they beat Manchester United to the signature of the highly-rated youngster from Auxerre.
However, the Burkina Faso international was restricted to only sporadic appearances in the blue of Chelsea and eventually moved elsewhere in search of better opportunities.
#3 Change in the system will result in a number of Chelsea casualties
Chelsea reverting to a back-four in a bid to emulate Maurizio Sarri's infamous 4-3-3 will certainly result in a number of casualties and the pre-season campaign has made it all the more evident. Victor Moses, who rediscovered himself in a wing-back role under Antonio Conte, is expected to go back to his natural position as a right winger - an alarming sign considering the fact that he was way below the pecking order while appearing in that role during his time at the club.
The emergence of Davide Zappacosta, as a reliable outlet at right-back in pre-season, will also further dampen the Nigerian's prospects of getting regular playing time under his belt. The same goes for Chelsea's other wing-back under Conte in the 3-4-3, Marcos Alonso, who is now being outfoxed quite comprehensively by Emerson Palmieri for the left-back role.
Furthermore, Chelsea shifting to two centre-halves at the back as opposed to three under Conte will now mean that only two of Andreas Christensen, Antonio Rudiger, David Luiz, Gary Cahill, and Ethan Ampadu will feature regularly for the side.
#4 Sarri the right man to nurture the crown jewels of the Chelsea Academy
Maurizio Sarri has always been a very shrewd customer in the market and the credit goes to his emphasis on coaching the players to perfectly master the system rather than spilling out exorbitant sums to try and acquire tailor-made candidates for the respective roles. The Napoli side that almost pipped Juventus to the Serie A title last season boasted of only the 5th highest wage bill in Italy and they still finished with an impressive 91 points tally, becoming the first team to hit the 90 mark without winning the title.
The effects of his astute nature is already rubbing off on Chelsea and their infamous youth academy, that boasts of some of the most talented youngsters in the whole of Europe. All of Ethan Ampadu, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Marcin Bulka have impressed for the Blues in pre-season so far and although it remains to be seen whether all of them will make the cut at Stamford Bridge, it surely is a welcome sign for the future.
#5 Chelsea could do well with a massive Deadline Day!
Chelsea are finally making their moves in the transfer market after what has been a very dragging window for the club. It took the club almost forever to complete the deal for Maurizio Sarri and although the signing came with the bonus of Jorginho, it is understood that the club would have ideally wanted to close the deal way before it actually happened.
The Blues were also handed a major blow in their pursuit of Sarri's prime targets in the form of Daniele Rugani, Gonzalo Higuain and Aleksandr Golovin after initial talks stalled over a number of reasons including feasibility. However, Thibaut Courtois' decision to go AWOL to try and manipulate his way to Real Madrid has now opened the doors for Chelsea to make an impact in the market before Deadline Day on Thursday.
According to the latest reports, Chelsea have agreed to meet the €80m release clause for Atheltic Bilbao shot-stopper Kepa Arrizabalaga who will now travel to London later today for his pending medical, after which he will be officially presented as a Chelsea player and the most expensive goalkeeper in history.
If reports are to be believed, Mateo Kovacic will also join Chelsea before Thursday on loan, with an option to buy, as part of the deal for Courtois while the West London outfit are also believed to have initiated talks with Lyon last night over the possibility of Nabil Fekir.
