BRIGHTON (January 19): Chelsea’s winning streak in the Premier League stretched to four games on Tuesday, as a 1-1 away draw with Brighton and Hove Albion further damaged their slim title hopes.
Hakim Ziyech’s opportunistic strike gave coach Thomas Tuchel’s team a lead against the course of play in the 28th minute, but they lacked spark and had no complaints, Reuters reported.
Brighton’s effort was easily rewarded when Adam Webster’s header hit Kepa Arrizabalaga in an hour after some heavy pressure on the house.
Chelsea started to dominate late, but couldn’t force Brighton to take the win.
Having been a serious contender for the title a few weeks ago, Chelsea managed to get only three points out of the last 12 points available and remained in third place with 44 points, 12 points behind leaders Manchester City after playing a game more.
They are also one point behind Liverpool after playing two more games, and unless they start getting back on the winning path soon, they could find their place in the top four under threat.
Ninth-placed Brighton have drawn 11 games this season and Webster said he was disappointed not to collect all three points against the European champions.
“I think we were the better team throughout the game,” he said. “They played a while in the end but other than that we were the dominant team and hopefully another day we can get three points.”
Despite Brighton’s brilliant style of play early on, they struggled to deliver a punch and were stunned when Ziyech fired from 25 yards and fired a low shot that goalkeeper Robert Sanchez could have done better.
Brighton started the second half with his front foot and Pascal Gross played Danny Welbeck but the striker missed his corners and went wide.
Just before the hour was up, Alexis Mac Allister was picked up by Marc Cucurella but his skewed shot was saved by Arrizabalaga.
From the resulting corner, Webster nodded at the net after finding a space in the area.
Romelu Lukaku, slammed by Tuchel at the weekend after the 1-0 loss to Manchester City, had the chance to restore Chelsea’s lead from a clever pass from Antonio Rudiger but he couldn’t beat Sanchez and replaced the Belgian soon after.
Tuchel sent Kai Havertz and Timo Werner off the bench to try to change his attacking streak and Brighton clung on at the end but a Chelsea win would have been undeserved after another disappointing display.
“We are tired,” said Tuchel, whose team has played 15 games since the beginning of December. “We’ve tried everything but you can see we are mentally and physically tired.”