MARC Cucurella and his Chelsea team-mates should shave their heads in apology for this.
Cucurella and his barber had already let the Blues down by apparently leaking team news before kick off.
Liam Rosenior seems on borrowed time after a torrid run of results Credit: Shutterstock Editorial
Brighton earned a well-deserved victory that Chelsea never really threatened to win Credit: Reuters
Then the Spaniard and the men in a funeral-black kit gave a display which could be the death of Liam Rosenior’s reign as head coach.
That was certainly the verdict of the away fans with more than a quarter of the game to go.
“F**k off, Rosenior,” they sang, as their team slumped towards a record-breaking fifth league defeat in a row without scoring.
The Brighton fans responded with chants of “Liam Rosenior, he’s one of our own” in slightly mocking honour of their former player and coach.
Sadly for him, the 41 year old will surely be a former Chelsea boss sooner rather than later.
It was disrespectful enough that the absence of injured pair Cole Palmer and Joao Pedro was broadcast on social media hours before kick off.
But the biggest kick in the teeth was how Rosenior’s team played.
Nevertheless, full credit to the Seagulls and head coach Fabian Hurzeler for taking advantage of the Blues’ weakness.
How the home crowd enjoyed it.
Hurzeler’s side dominated and sometimes bullied a visiting team which had three former Brighton players in it, even without Pedro.
After Ferdi Kadioglu’s first-half goal andJack Hinshelwood killed the game with the second.
Substitute Danny Welbeck grabbed a late third so that the scoreline was closer to reflecting the home side’s true superiority.
Victory took the Seagulls above Chelsea and up to sixth in the table, right in the hunt for European football.
The Blues may miss out on continental competition entirely at this rate, which would be a disaster and, for Rosenior, impossible to survive.
The definition of madness, they say, is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result.
Rosenior had to try something new. Picking five defenders was not the most obvious way of ending a goal drought of more than four Premier League games, but the Blues boss’ options were limited.
Pedro and Palmer were the only Chelsea players to have scored in the league since the start of February.
The new formation was basically a good old-fashioned 4-4-2.
But it was the same old Chelsea, who gave a first-half performance for their manager which would be best described as sackable.
Inside three minutes Pascal Gross had tons of space down the Brighton right to send in a cross which Kaoru Mitoma met on the volley.
Unlike in the weekend game at Spurs, the Japanese winger’s shot was saved.
But Chelsea goalkeeper Robert Sanchez was beaten after the resulting corner. Jorrel Hato’s weak header fell for Kadioglu and Wes Fofana helped the ball past Sanchez.
The Blues’ keeper was in action again in the 15th minute, athletically tipping over a header by Jan Paul van Hecke from another Gross cross.
Hurzeler’s team could smell the fear and attacked like Seagulls divebombing tourists for their chips on the Pier.
After Georginio Rutter wasted a decent opening, Jack Hinshelwood should have made it 2-0.
Sanchez’s latest horrendous mistake passing out from the back gifted the ball to Baleba in the penalty area.
The midfielder squared it to Hinshelwood, but the shot did not have enough power and Trevoh Chalobah cleared off the line. Sanchez showed his appreciation to his defender and soon made another stop from a Rutter cross-shot.
The lucky escape galvanised Chelsea a little. They looked a little less nervous at the back and even won a corner at the other end.
But Brighton’s Van Hecke and Rutter made poor passes when in promising positions and the only fear for the home fans was their team would pay for not turning their domination into more goals.
Rosenior had to change something at the break ahead of the biggest half of his short Chelsea reign.
He chose to send on Alejandro Garnacho for Fofana, which meant Cucurella dropping back into his more accustomed full-back position in the usual 4-2-3-1 set-up
Garnacho soon teed up Romeo Lavia, who fired over the bar.
“We’ve had a shot,” sang the away supporters.
Their team was playing better, but Brighton continued to threaten.
Mitoma spun on a Gross pass only to drag his shot wide. Yankuba Minteh appealed for a penalty against Cucurella.
And then Hinshelwood made amends.
Minteh escaped being called for handball and hacked clear. Somehow Chelsea were two against two at the back, which became two versus one when Caicedo fell over and decided only to jog back..
Rutter charged on towards Chalobah then played in Hinshelwood, who swept the ball home first time.
Mitoma fired wide, then Kadioglu forced two more good saves from Sanchez, whose shot-stopping at least cannot be questioned.
The away fans meanwhile turned on Chelsea supremo Behdad Eghbali.
The co-owner missed the Manchester United defeat at the weekend, when he was abused by pre-match protesters and in the stadium.
This time he was around to hear again just how little the supporters think of him and the head coach appointed only in January.
Garnacho and substitute Marc Guiu at least had shots, but both went wide.
A Chelsea goal would have been little consolation to anyone, least of all Rosenior. Welbeck’s late third was just another nail in the coffin.
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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