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A cleverly-taken 84th minute goal from Dan Gosling ensured a massive victory for Bournemouth, who handed Chelsea a fourth defeat in five league games and dusted off their own barren spell of five consecutive Premier League losses.
Throughout the course of the fixture, the Cherries looked extremely determined and direct. They started the game with higher tempo, energy and range of passing. Finding key spaces through little triangles in the Blues' half caused a host of problems to a side that was struggling to gain a strong foothold in the game.
As a result, Chelsea, although having sustained the lion's share of possession, failed to create clear-cut opportunities and succumbed to the Bournemouth pressure late on, owing to a tactical misconception where the offside trap severely flopped.
Apart from an early chance for Mason Mount and a couple of glancing headers from Tammy Abraham, the hosts barely mustered any openings. Eddie Howe, who deserves to bide his time in a potential turnaround process, stacked his midfield with Jefferson Lerma mainly deployed as a ball-winner.
His side relied on their pace in counters and applied a more pragmatic approach to the game. While it eventually resulted in a tactical masterclass, most of the match transpired as a cagey, dodgy affair. On that note, we analyse what went wrong for Chelsea as they fell to another defeat at Stamford Bridge.
#3 Kepa's miscalculation and shoddy run of form
It's hard to imagine such a drastic drop in the performance levels of a goalkeeper who adapted to life in England like a fish to water. He was up there, making last-ditch saves, winning points for his team and saving penalties with remarkable forecasting skill.
But Kepa Arrizabalaga this season, has looked a completely different, under-confident proposition between the sticks. It's been too soft from the Spaniard, who has made some shabby errors at the back, allowed goals in way too easily and been rather substandard with his passing.
It all came to fore when Bournemouth, on the back of serious penetration into the Chelsea box, fired in a tame effort towards the Chelsea shot-stopper. The young goalie dove to his right, but couldn't even manage to collect the ball as ultimately, Cesar Azpilicueta had to clear.
The goal, with due respect to Gosling, was a moment of scintillating geometrical awareness, but Kepa could have done much better as his positioning was not up to standard. Often hesitant to spring off his line, Arrizabalaga was neither behind Gosling nor on his goal line. Indeed, he was left in no man's land, giving himself absolutely no chance of smothering the looping effort.
2. Significant lapses in concentration at the back
With just two clean sheets all season in the league, one of the many obstacles faced by the young Chelsea side is quite obvious. The Blues struggle to defend set pieces, in particular. It'd be immensely essential to highlight the same later on, but a few errors the Chelsea back line commits is the space left behind the full backs, major lapses in concentration or simply schoolboy mistakes.
In corners and free-kicks, the team's semblance looks rather static, owing to the strict zonal marking. There's little tracking, even lesser attention paid to the minor details and a certain lack of distinct communication. Sometimes they fail to clear their lines or track the opposition bodies at the near post. Today, it was a matter of not winning the second balls.
Initially having shut out the danger, Chelsea, as soon as the headed clearance, should have stepped out of their lines as a team to catch the opposition team offside, something that backfired spectacularly. Bournemouth scored the only goal of the game courtesy of that momentary lapse in concentration, which doomed the Blues to their 4th loss in 5 Premier League games.
1. Lack of invention in the Bournemouth half
Chelsea picked more passes, got more involved as the game went on, but were largely flat-footed in terms of their penetration and transition. They lacked the burst of acceleration to go out and hurt Bournemouth on the break, for starters. It looked very rusty whenever the Blues tried to play out and leave the opponents behind.
They played a lot of balls from one end of the pitch to the other in the form of diagonals, but the visitors were well-equipped to handle that one-dimensional attacking framework. The likes of N'Golo Kante were sparingly used, apart from a couple of breaks. Fraser's defensive work aided Gosling and Lerma in intercepting and reading more passes.
Willian and Pulisic remained absent from the game's proceedings, failing to engineer a pin-point cross or any effort on goal. The latter was significantly out of the game as he rued for space and a possible interplay with Emerson.
Willian meanwhile, was simply horrendous with his corners and crossing. His decision-making was a major letdown, with the failure to deliver first-time crosses tantamount to the absence of a creative outlet.
Chelsea should have probed further and played with a bit more patience. Way too often, they tried to cut open the Bournemouth defence with a 15-20 yard passes, or with a diagonal. The momentum, as a result, continued to move in a stop-start fashion as Bournemouth had the last laugh.
