Alonso blames Chelsea players: I'm not happy and we got what we deserved
Chelsea's 2-2 draw with Hull City took the Blues' tally to 10 goals this season, but the side also conceded two or more in each of their opening four Premier League matches, for the first time in 11 years.
Only Crystal Palace and Ipswich Town have shipped more goals than Chelsea so far this season, the Blues' net breached 9 times. The problem, though, predates Xabi Alonso's arrival. Chelsea have now gone 20 consecutive league matches without a clean sheet, a run stretching back to last January and their longest in 65 years. Alonso summed up the mood after the match, insisting his team must compete better and avoid being "fragile" in one-on-one duels.
Rodgers, Palmer and Joao Pedro are shining in attack, but the Blues know they need to find solutions at the back.
Alonso told the BBC: "We had one or two good chances to score the winning goal, but we didn't manage to take advantage of it."
"I'm not happy," he continued. "We can perform better. We got what we deserved. We need to be more solid and in control. We have new players and a new coaching staff. This is the process we are going through. I'm sure we will be able to be more in control within a few months."
The Spanish coach was adamant, though, that the switch to four defenders had not fixed the recent problems. "You can say we played with three defenders or four, but the issue relates to the choice of players, their characteristics, and the positions in which they produce their best levels," he noted.
"Today we played with Malo Gusto, and he was moving into good positions, trying to find him, and on the right side he was linking up play with the other players, so the change wasn't a big one for me," he pointed out.
Hato's half-time substitution, he added, was a tactical call. Then he spelled out what fixing Chelsea's problems will take.
"All of this may be entertaining, but I hope that one day you will say it was a boring match, and that we won and didn't give these entertaining moments to the opponent," Alonso said. "But it certainly repeats some of the patterns we commit, which will take time to fix, or will require certain moments, when we go ahead in the scoreline, as we still have to compete and not give them the opportunity to come back this easily. Especially on the first goal, we could have performed much better."
"We were extremely fragile when we gave them this hope, because up to that moment, we were controlling the match and creating chances, but the momentum we had changed, and with it the mood of the match and its result changed," he stressed. "This is something we need to discuss and address, and we will improve, but it is affecting our performance at the moment."
"In general, I think we attack better than we defend, in every aspect of play," he added. "We know this is a big issue and a main focus for us. Certainly, we have only played 4 matches, but I don't like this pattern in terms of conceding goals, and we need to perform much better. Open play, set pieces, long balls, solidity, and competitive spirit: we can perform better."
