0 touches in the box, 68% pass success rate – yet Chelsea star still gets 7.6 rating | OneFootball

This has been a really poor showing from Chelsea at the Vitality Stadium.

They’ve managed an xG of just 07.6 as we head into the final 5 minutes, and even that is an improvement on the first half, where there were no shots on target at all from the Blues.

Once again the team looked slow and off the pace. They look set to follow a draw with Arsenal and a defeat to Leeds with another draw, while the teams around them pick up points.

Palmer looks rusty on long awaited return to action

Cole Palmer struggles against Bournemouth. (Photo by Warren Little/Getty Images)

One player we were hoping for a bit of magic from was Cole Palmer. The attacking midfielder was making his first start since September, and while we weren’t expecting much, he was perhaps even quieter than we expected.

What’s amazing to us is that he got a 7.6 rating from FotMod. Nobody in a Chelsea shirt (apart from Robert Sanchez) deserves more than about a 6 today in our opinion.

We really don’t see where it’s come from – Palmer had just one very speculative shot. He completed a dreadful 26 of his 38 passes, a 68% success rate. He took zero touches in the opposition box, and succeeded with just one of his 5 attempted long passes and crosses.

We really don’t know where these sites get their ratings from sometimes. Still, the important thing was to get some minutes in his legs (he got 58 in the end) and hope he’s better next time out.

In other news…

Tosin Adarabioyo isn’t in the squad today, and some fans are taking this as a punishment, but it’s not quite that simple.

Cole Palmer returns today, and Enzo Maresca spoke before the game about what he thought the attacker needed to get back to his real level.