5 Key Talking Points From Everton 3-1 Chelsea: The Attack Has Gone Cold For The Blues

Everton vs Chelsea: 5 Key Talking Points

Chelsea had only four points from as many games this season and they were to take on an Everton side that they beat in the corresponding fixture 6-3 last time around. If Chelsea were expecting to reciprocate the scoreline, they only got half of it right. Everton did score three, but Chelsea scored only once.

Jose Mourinho replaced Willian with Obi-Mikel to shore up his midfield, but that didn’t help the blues as a hat-trick by Steven Naismith gave Everton a well-deserved win. Chelsea did come back into the game when Nemanja Matic made it 2-1 in the first half but Naismith sealed all the three points with a late third goal.

With Chelsea now sitting just above the relegation places and Everton flying high in the top half to eh league table, we provide the five talking points from the game.

1. Naismith is an underrated player

 

If someone was to ask you to name some of the best players at Everton currently, they would possible name Stones, Barkley, Lukaku, even Mirallas but no one would name the 28-year-old Scottish international. Naismith though is one of the hardest workers in the field and always is willing to play in any position as well. Naismith displayed great positioning and finishing to score a perfect hat-trick, header, left foot and right foot. He deserves a lot more respect than what he gets at the moment.

2. Defensive headache for Chelsea

In another freak stat, Chelsea have now conceded 12 goals in the Premier League, Chelsea are not known to leak goals and that is the best way to describe their defence, they are leaking goals in. The Blues started with Terry and Zouma at the back and Ivanovic down the right, but all three of them had poor games as they could not deal with the attacking threat of Barkley, Lukaku and Naismith. Jose Mourinho has a lot of work to do if he is going to make this Chelsea team defensively sound, again.

3. The attack has gone cold for the Blues

Diego Costa had scored seven goals in the first five Premier League games last season, in the same number of games this season, he only has one. It isn’t just Costa who is not firing, Fabregas and Hazard don’t look the same. Pedro, who was brought in recently still needs time to be able to deliver and Falcao still doesn’t seem like the Falcao of the old. Chelsea don’t have a lot of options up front and now it seems to be hurting them, fairly early in a long and brutal season.

4. Stones displays his ability and strong mentality

One story running about before the game was how would John Stones react to playing against a club which made repeated advances for his signature. Stones though stuck with Everton and was incredible against Chelsea. He did pretty well to curb Diego Costa and make a few great tackles as well. Roberto Martinez certainly must be happy with the defenders performance and will be hopeful of a great season for both him and the team.

5. Everton on their way to Europe?

Roberto Martinez did state that he would try to get Everton into the Champions League and while he hasn’t quite been able to do that in his first two seasons at the club, he could get them into Europe this time around. With Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool still finding their feet, if Everton continue playing with this mentality, Europe should be the minimum they attain this season.