UCL: We Are Not Experimenting ─ Cole Palmer as he claims the Blues are in to win it
As the new UEFA Champions League season kicks off, Chelsea hosted Bayern Munich in their first game of the campaign by Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena, Munich, Germany.
Following their first defeat in the competition, Chelsea’s Cole Palmer says the club is not in the competition to experiment, but to compete.
He noted that the Blues have started the competition to be competitive straightaway in a bid to lift the confidence of his teammates after falling to a 3-1 defeat at the hands of the Bundesliga champions.
Enzo Maresca’s men were the second-best team on the turf as they lost 3-1 to a more experienced and composed side in Bayern Munich at Allianz Arena on Wednesday night.
Last night’s was the Blues’ appearance in the UEFA Champions League since 2023, a match which depicted what a youthful team like that of Chelsea needed to succeed on the biggest stage.
However, the Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca said, after the game in Munich, that his side had so much to learn from the loss and can “build something special”─while the club’s winger rebuffed the notion that they cannot compete quickly.
“We are not coming here for it to be a learning curve,” the England international said.
“We have shown tonight we want to compete and we want to do our best as we can.”
Flashing back, we can recall that Chelsea won the Club World Cup in June, defeating Paris Saint-Germain in the final in New Jersey, having won the Conference League two months earlier, but in the view of Chelsea’s former player Pet Nevin, ‘the UCL would surely be a greater test.’
“It was the kind of performance that I expected from Chelsea,” Nevin said on BBC Radio 5 Live.
“A lot of people were saying beforehand that they were going to break into this competition, they are Club World Cup champions and all of that, but I was thinking, ‘steady on’.
“The jump you need to do to come to places like this is quite big, and several players just don’t have that experience yet. They weren’t able to do it as a group today.”
Chelsea’s Glaring Weakness
Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca can have been overly satisfied with his team’s performance against Bayern Munich on Wednesday night, but admitted that they lacked “full focus for the full 90 minutes.”
“I think the players were already aware of this competition, of the difficulties,” he added.
“You cannot commit mistakes in the way we have done, but I just said to the players, it’s a game that we can learn a lot from, and build something special from this defeat.”
Chelsea’s performance on the night was commendable, specifically earlier in the game when Pedro Neto and Enzo Fernandez missed good chances from promising spots due to costly mistakes.
They switched off at a drop-ball, leaving Bayern winger Michael Olise free to deliver a cross that Trevoh Chalobah turned into his own net. Then midfielder Moises Caicedo brought down Harry Kane to concede a penalty, which the England captain converted.
After Palmer had pulled a goal back, Kane sealed victory in the second half when defender Malo Gusto gave away the ball.
All these were defensive mistakes against a clinical opposition team spearheaded by Harry Kane, who happened to play in the English Premier League for many years.
Bayern is a team who have created a tradition of winning their first UEFA Champions League match in the last twenty-two seasons, know how to put their first opponents through the knifes at this current level, a culture which this current Chelsea side does not have.
Will Chelsea Conquer Their Naivety?
Former Chelsea forward Pat Nevin added on BBC Live: “It wasn’t quite men against boys, but Bayern Munich were certainly a good distance ahead of Chelsea here.
“The mistakes Chelsea made were quite naive, and they were caught out, not just for the goals, but for a whole raft of chances aside from that.
“That’s what happens with young players playing in this competition, but they will learn from that.
“This level is elite. It is a jump. And that jump may take them a little while.”
Inexperience may have caused Chelsea to lose in Munich.
At the Allianz Arena, Chelsea used their third-youngest ever Champions League squad. Their whole 24-man team went into Wednesday’s match against experience and mature Bayern Munich side with a total of 117 appearances in the competition between them.
By comparison, Bayern Munich goalkeeper Manuel Neuer, 31, has featured in the competition 151 times alone, representing the German club.
His teammates Kane, Joshua Kimmich and Serge Gnabry have substantial experience at this level. By contrast, Chelsea pair Caicedo and Joao Pedro were making their debuts in the competition despite being among the team’s star names. They are listed among eight Chelsea players, the highest for a single match in the history of the club in the UCL, making their first appearance.
Even the Blues’ head coach, Enzo Maresca, a member of Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola’s coaching staff during the 2023 treble-winning season, may need to upgrade to a higher level.
Even before Harry Kane scored the third goal for Bayern Munich, it was already seen, but Maresca did not reach it, and could only make changes after the third goal had been scored. It is being rumoured that Chelsea coach, Maresca, may well be on his way to Manchester City.
Howbeit, the changes were ineffective as they were made when it was too late, too late.
UCL: We Are Not Experimenting ─ Cole Palmer
