Goals from Richarlison and Sigurdsson were enough to hand Everton the much needed morale boosting win against the blues.
This was a much needed win for the blues as they sought to put pressure on the top four teams especially Tottenham, Arsenal and Manchester United teams 4, 3 and 1 points above them respectively. A win would have seen Chelsea topple Manchester United and sit 1 point below third position thereby solidifying their hopes of a top four finish this season.
Typical Sarri and his popular sarriball tactics went all out at Everton once again, keeping possession, dominating in all areas of the pitch except Pickford's area and whenever they managed to get there, the Everton shotstopper dealt with whatever Chelsea threw at him impressively.
With only Hazard the only goal threatening player in the Chelsea team, Everton made sure to restrict the attacker to fewer chances in front of goal and as such, an absolutely dominating first half from the blues ended without a goal to show for it.
The second half was a different story for Chelsea as they were made to rue their unimpressive and aimless ball possession five minutes after resumption.
A corner kick was pulled in and Kepa punched out a header only for striker Richarlison to head the rebound into the net to give Everton a one goal lead.
Chelsea continued their possession recycling routine up until Everton closed the tie with Sigurdsson's penalty in the 72nd minute, taking the toffees to 11th in the league table and leaving the blues 6th, away from European competition spots.
Conclusion
Maurizio Sarri's favorite and popular "sarriball" tactics was appreciated and applauded by many at the beginning of the season as they went on a win streak until the flaws in the team were exposed by Tottenham's Mauricio Pochettino and ever since then, the blues has not remained the same, dropping points against teams they were expected to see off with ease considering a team of their status.
With Sarri's flaws exposed came a stubborn manager who was persistent on his usage of a three man midfield lacking in goal threats between them. Former striker Morata was sold and Higuian bought from Napoli but there seem to be no improvement goal wise with Eden Hazard the only pure goal threat in the team.
Putting into consideration Chelsea's woes in front of goal, there are talks of not having quality players especially in the wing positions where Marcos Alonso is considered the worst player at the moment with talks of Emerson to start always in his stead. Jorginho, Kante and Barkley's midfield combination hasn't been much of a great combination as the trio have only done enough to keep possesion with less than 15 goals between them this season.
Hazard has all the goal scoring duties heaped on his shoulders and he simply cannot do it alone because he is just one man. Higuain was brought in to help ease the goal scoring problems but it appears the Argentine is still finding his footing on England soil.
In my own opinion, Chelsea's coach Maurizio Sarri needs to replace few players in his team and change the style of the team because using the same players over and over again will only make Chelsea look an easy catch for even the lowliest of teams.
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