Brighton vs Chelsea: Just wake Chelsea up to score!

Victory has become a luxury for Chelsea: They have won only one of their last eight Premier League matches. Liam Rosenior needs to revive the scoring ability of the Blues' players if he doesn't want Chelsea to become spectators in the continental arena.

Looking upward, Chelsea see the Champions League qualification ticket slipping further away. Rosenior's team is seven points behind Liverpool's fifth place. Looking downward, they are only one point ahead of ninth-placed opponent Brighton. Not qualifying for the Champions League next season would be a failure for this 41-year-old manager. But if Chelsea also miss out on Europa League or Conference League qualification, the risk of Rosenior losing his job is very high, despite promises from the owners.

Loss due to poor chance conversion

So what is the factor causing Chelsea to perform poorly like a runaway vehicle? A familiar scenario in Rosenior's recent defeats: Creating many opportunities, but failing to convert them into goals and then conceding from an undeserved situation.

In the match against Manchester United, Chelsea launched 21 shots, but only three were on target. Rosenior is not lacking strikers, but the quality of their performances only leads to sighs. Pedro Neto only kept tirelessly crossing into the box. Liam Delap was not himself in his first start since the beginning of the year. Alejandro Garnacho, facing his former club, tried every way to dribble past Manchester United's defense and then lost the ball, and that process repeated over and over. And Cole Palmer? The former Manchester City forward wandered on the field unsure of which position to choose to make an impact. While Chelsea wasted many chances, Manchester United only needed one finishing blow from Matheus Cunha to take three points away from Stamford Bridge. An undeserved loss when Chelsea's defensive block was broken just because Wesley Fofana had to temporarily leave the field for injury treatment.

A similar story also occurred in another home match against Newcastle on March 5th. Chelsea's 22 shots resulted in only three on target and zero goals. Meanwhile, Eddie Howe's team needed only seven shots to find the decisive goal from Anthony Gordon in the first half. From mid-March to now, Chelsea have launched 67 shots, the most in the Premier League, but none have resulted in a goal. Poor chance conversion has become a fatal flaw that could push Chelsea away from the Top 5 race, while competitors like Manchester United, Aston Villa, and Liverpool continuously accumulate necessary victories in the survival phase of the season.

Time is running out for Rosenior

Joao Pedro's injury just before the Manchester United match clearly disrupted Liam Rosenior's tactical plans. Estevao's hamstring injury after only 16 minutes of play forced the 41-year-old manager to bring Garnacho onto the field, even though he knew full well that the Argentine player was at rock bottom in both form and confidence. But that is not enough justification for Chelsea failing to score in four consecutive Premier League matches for the first time in 28 years. Rosenior's team could very well head toward the historical milestone of 1912 if they continue to lose and cannot score against Brighton tonight.

Chelsea's attacking drought is only a small part of the problems under Rosenior. The playing mentality of the Blues' players is no better than under predecessor Enzo Maresca. Chelsea dropped 15 points after leading in the first half of this season. When Rosenior took charge, the Blues still showed weakness in two dropped victories against this season's newcomers Burnley and Leeds in February. The way Chelsea meekly lost to Manchester City, PSG, and Everton in March indicates that this team lacks a leader on the field to lift the players' spirits in crucial moments. The situation of Chelsea players receiving unnecessary penalties has not significantly improved, though under Rosenior only two players have received red cards.

All these problems Rosenior needs time to thoroughly fix. The difficulty is that the time reserve for the former Strasbourg coach to salvage Chelsea's season is running out. Five Premier League matches and the FA Cup semifinal against Leeds are what remain for Rosenior if he doesn't want this season to become a disastrous version like 2022-23, the season Chelsea experienced four different reigns and finished in 12th place overall. Rosenior needs his strikers to start scoring again. But whom can he trust for the goal-scoring task now?