Chelsea suffered more teething problems under their new owners on Sunday when soundly beaten 3-0 by Leeds United away in the Premier League.
Following last Sunday’s 2-2 draw to Tottenham Hotspur, where coach Thomas Tuchel stole headlines for almost coming to blows with ex-Chelsea manager Antonio Conte and was red-carded after the final whistle, Chelsea headed up north to take on another historical rival in Leeds.
Unbeaten so far this term, the Yorkshiremen were unable to edge past their visitors in the opening half hour until disastrous control of a backpass by goalkeeper Edouard Mendy paved the way for Brenden Aaronson to become the first American to score under an American coach on 33 minutes.
Mendy was savaged on social media for the blunder and told he was “worse than Kepa” in his positional rival Kepa Arrizabalaga.
Four minutes later, though, summer signing Raheem Sterling was at fault this time when he carelessly gave away a free-kick on the edge of Mendy’s 18-yard box.
With man of the match Jack Harrison delivering for Rodrigo to net his fourth of the campaign and become the Premier League’s top scorer, Leeds went down the Elland Road tunnel 2-0 up at the interval.
In the second half, further poor play followed when a Daniel James cross was allowed to pass several Chelsea men and land in Rodrigo’s path for the Brazil-born Spain international to assist Harrison.
To pile on the misery, another new boy in Kalidou Koulibaly was sent off six minutes before the full time whistle for a second booking, and Tuchel spent the dying stages of the match risking further punishment from the FA himself by arguing with the fourth official.
With the full-time whistle blown, however, Leeds sealed their first win since 2002 over the Blues and moved up to second while remaining unbeaten.
Further down the table in 12th, Chelsea have just four points from three games and continue to struggle since Roman Abramovich sold the club to Todd Boehly’s consortium for £4.5 billion ($5.4 billion) in May.
Outfoxed from start to finish by his rival Jesse Marsch, Tuchel complained to BBC Sport that: “Everything that can go wrong, did go wrong.”
“It started yesterday. We had no plane to arrive so we came on the bus. The players could fly but for the coaching staff it was a long ride. It continued today. We lost the game in the first 20 minutes,” he lamented.
Next up for Chelsea now is a home date with Leicester City, who are no pushovers under Brendan Rodgers, on Saturday.
And with 10 days remaining in the current transfer window, they could boast Barcelona’s Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang in their arsenal if succumbing to the Catalan’s $25 million demand for the forward.
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