Chelsea 0-1 Bournemouth: 3 Key Observations from the game | Premier League 2019-20

Chelsea hosted Bournemouth at Stamford Bridge on the 17th matchday of the Premier League season. The home side came into this game on the back of a huge 2-1 win over Lille in the UEFA Champions League, while the away side were suffering from injuries to key players and bad results.

The game started with Chelsea enjoying a lot of possession but the goalscoring opportunities were few and far between. Eddie Howe's Bournemouth were set-up to defend and they did that magnificently throughout the first half. On the break, the away side didn't conjure up anything substantial.

But the story changed in the second period as Bournemouth started exploiting the available spaces on the counter-attack. Josh King was through on goal twice, but the Norwegian couldn't finish any of those chances.

Bournemouth took the lead in the 84th minute through Dan Gosling after Chelsea failed to clear their lines from a corner. Despite the home side's efforts to get a last gasp equalizer, the visitors held on and got a deserved 1-0 win.

Here, we are going to take a look at the three key observations from the game.

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3. Chelsea's failure to exploit the wider areas cost them

Willian in a tussle for the ball

There was a clear lack of tempo, rhythm, and intensity to Chelsea's play on Saturday. Bournemouth never really pressed Chelsea in their own half and there were available spaces for their full-backs to exploit on the wings. A lot of times, Antonio Rudiger and Kurt Zouma had the ball in the opposition's half, with either Emerson or Cesar Azpilicueta in acres of space on the wings but both centre-backs couldn't find their full-backs as the diagonal balls were usually overhit.

Also, Jorginho, who is usually the deep-lying orchestrator for this Chelsea side, couldn't complete simple passes, which denied the home side any rhythm to their play. The likes of Willian and Christian Pulisic were driving infield with the ball at every opportunity, which became way too predictable.

Frank Lampard's men failed to create many clear-cut opportunities on the day and that could be written down to their predictable attacking patterns.

#2 Bournemouth's narrow 4-5-1 formation worked a treat

Eddie Howe has a reason to smile

Bournemouth have been struggling with injuries lately and a trip to Stamford Bridge was never going to be easy for them. But credit to Eddie Howe as his team came to London with a clear gameplan and it worked wonderfully well.

Howe set-up Bournemouth in a narrow 4-5-1, with Joshua King leading the line. The plan was to suffocate Chelsea's attacks down the middle and crowd the central area of the pitch. By doing that, they allowed the Blues room down the wings but the home side never really took advantage of that.

That meant, Chelsea couldn't manage to carve open Bournemouth's backline even once and every time the away side won the ball back, there was the threat of a counter-attack, with willing runners such as Ryan Fraser and King.

Most of the attacking impetus came down that left flank for Bournemouth but they scored their goal through a simple corner. What Bournemouth did to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Saturday should be the blueprint for every side that visits the Blues' home ground.

#1 Frank Lampard's substitutions didn't work

Chelsea FC v Lille OSC: Group H - UEFA Champions League

During the second half, it was quite clear that Bournemouth were creating the better chances and looked more likely to score the opener. Some of the Chelsea players were just passengers and it was evident that something had to change.

So, after the 60th-minute mark, Frank Lampard brought on Callum Hudson-Odoi and Mateo Kovacic for Christian Pulisic and Willian, but both of them had little to no impact on the proceedings of the game.

Hudson-Odoi even gave the ball away in his own box just after coming on but Chelsea escaped after Josh King couldn't find Dan Gosling for a tap in. Then, Lampard brought on Michy Batshuayi for Jorginho but due to the lack of service, the Belgian striker never really threatened Bournemouth's backline.

To many people's surprise, Mason Mount, who remained anonymous through large portions of the game wasn't brought off and one can say, the young Englishman had his worst game in a Chelsea shirt. Chelsea have now lost four of their last five Premier League games and it's now up to Lampard to rejuvenate his team.