Beneath hat, snood, gloves and padded jacket, very little of Thomas Tuchel was visible but he was still a picture of frustration. He yelled at his captain, Cesar Azpilicueta, punched the air in annoyance and spent some of stoppage time hopping up and down in exasperation. Perhaps Tuchel was more watchable than his team on a day that both started and ended badly for Chelsea.
They had hoped they would not have to take the field at Molineux. When they did, they were sterile in a stalemate. They had requested a postponement from the Premier League after recording seven positive Covid tests. “We were just worried about the safety of our players,” said Tuchel.
“We talk a lot about safety and protecting the players; I am not so sure we did this.” They were denied off the field, and then on it. They have now only won two of their last six league games and find themselves six points behind Manchester City.
There was fog at Molineux, though it scarcely camouflaged much drama. Wolves may deal in binary, scorelines featuring plenty of zeroes and ones. They took that a stage further: this game had one shot on target apiece. Outstanding goalkeepers did not need to stand out.
Jose Sa and Edouard Mendy have the Premier League’s two highest save percentages but neither had much scope to improve his record. The Chelsea goalkeeper had a relatively simple save to make from a golden chance, the unmarked Leander Dendoncker meeting Daniel Podence’s cross with a header that he directed at the Senegalese. The Wolves No1 made a terrific stop when Marcos Alonso released Christian Pulisic, the American outsprinted the home defence and tried to lift his shot over the goalkeeper.
Briefly, it did seem there was an early goal: instead Wolves have just two in their last eight games. Given that record, it was understandable they celebrated long and hard when Podence converted Marcal’s deep cross.
Yet the offside Raul Jimenez had swung and missed at it, he was in Mendy’s line of vision and the goal was chalked off. “The VAR should make a more better decision,” said Wolves manager Bruno Lage. But Chelsea kept a first clean sheet in seven games, and could thank the ever-excellent Thiago Silva in part for that.
But fine defending was not confined to them. Conor Coady was perhaps the pick of a defiant bunch for Lage’s side, but they prosper as a unit. Top teams struggle to break them down. They only lost by a single goal to both Liverpool and Manchester City. That Chelsea could not emulate them was another unflattering comparison with title rivals.
Tuchel claimed he was a bit “disappointed and angry” by the decision to play the game. Perhaps Chelsea were distracted. “There was a lot of noise in the last 24 hours,” Tuchel said. “Is his the perfect circumstances to prepare a match? No.” He seemed to make a point by only naming six substitutes, though they did include a four-time Champions League winner, in Mateo Kovacic. But Tuchel said the Croatian and N’Golo Kante only had one training session apiece and Trevoh Chalobah two.
The German got creative with the remaining men. “Some players had to adapt to new positions,” he said. Chelsea may never again field a midfield trio of Chalobah, Hakim Ziyech and Kante. This one didn’t last long: after a quarter of the game, Tuchel changed from 3-5-2 to 4-2-3-1.
At half-time, he removed Chalobah for Saul Niguez; the fact the Spaniard started on the bench in this team indicated how badly his Chelsea career has gone. Chelsea missed the sidelined Romelu Lukaku and Kai Havertz, though finishers would only have been of limited use when they failed to create chances. “We struggled in the first half to adapt to Wolves’ shape but I am pleased with the performance in the second half,” Tuchel said. But he had not looked it on the touchline.
