From title challengers to top-four contenders to reviving the undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the club’s direction, quite the slide for Chelsea. The returning Thomas Tuchel will have seen few of the players he left behind in 2022 but he will, though, have been reminded of the permanent jeopardy of being Chelsea manager.
Previously a safe pair of hands guiding the Chelsea project, Enzo Maresca’s formula for success is wobbling. His team showed a combination of callowness and profligacy, struggling with a spirited Bournemouth team stripped to bare bones. It took an added-time free-kick from Reece James, openly criticised by Maresca, his Chelsea career hampered by injury, and a survivor from Tuchel’s time, to prevent defeat.
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