By John Kelly
XABI Alonso rejected the suggestion that Chelsea had been “bullied” in their 1-0 defeat to Sunderland but admitted his side hadn’t been good enough against the Premier League strugglers at the Stadium of Light.
It was a game that hinged on two penalty decisions, one given to Sunderland after Chelsea had been denied a spot-kick.
In the 25th minute, Cole Palmer was taken down by Luke O’Nien but the video assistant referee review judged the initial contact had been been just outside the box.
Eleven minutes later, Brian Brobbey turned Levi Colwill before driving into the box and going down under a challenge from the defender. It appeared as if both players had a hold of each other’s shirt, but referee Jarred Gillett’s decision stood and Enzo le Fee sent Mike Prenders the wrong way from twelve yards.
Morgan Rogers had Chelsea’s best chance but headed wide when he should have at least tested goalkeeper Robin Roefs.
The Blues offered little threat apart from that as the Black Cats won their first league game since beating Fulham in August.
“No, no, not bullied,” Alonso said. “I would say that it was a situation that we could have defended better. A situation that we could have got better advantages in attack. But the game was really competitive. They were waiting for a chance. They got it after the lead. We were trying, but we were not producing much. The first goal was so important. Being behind, we didn’t produce enough.
“It wasn’t the best one. I think that we didn’t deserve more than probably one point. The game was really close. Not much happened, to be honest. Just that action. We had the cross from Morgan, but we didn’t produce enough to deserve to win. We were in the low block. We missed a bit of patience, a bit of quality, creativity on the last third to create more chances. You need to be more consistent. We didn’t do good enough.”
Alonso refused to use the two penalty decisions as an excuse for the defeat.
He said: “I haven’t seen a Cole’s one but I’ve been told that there was a chance that it could be a fair penalty. And the other one, I’m not happy with how we defended that situation. Something that we could avoid, something that we had worked on during the week. And from that action, to give a penalty is not good for us.”
Alonso took off centre-back Colwill at half-time and replaced him with winger Estevao Willian.
“Yeah I mean there was a reason,” Alonso said. “He had a yellow card as well. We didn’t want to take risks. And it had been something that we had been working on during the week.”
The Blues were still without the injured Joao Pedro, with Alonso deciding to go into another game without a recognised striker. Pedro Neto started up front, before centre-forward Danny Welbeck came on for him in the 62nd minute.
“You didn’t ask that last week when we won against [Manchester] United,” Alonso said. “For sure, we miss him. Even when we win, even when we lose, we miss some players that we have injured. We are waiting to have them back, because they are important. Now, we need to use the time to recover them, but we have to get ready for the next one.”
