Chelsea 4-2 Brighton: Cole Palmer scores four in sensational Stamford Bridge thriller
Chelsea 4-2 Brighton: Cole Palmer scores four in sensational Stamford Bridge thriller. Chelsea yet again maintained their fine run of form with a thrilling 4-2 win at home to Brighton & Hove Albion.
The Blues maintain their unbeaten run of games in the Premier League since losing to Manchester City on the opening day of the season.
Cole Palmer scored all four Chelsea goals in the first-half to put the Seagulls to the sword on a fine Saturday in west London.
How the game unfolded;
Within the first opening minutes, Brighton took the lead. The hosts failed to deal with a Pervis Estupinan cross, with Carlos Baleba blocking Levi Colwill’s clearance, and Georginio Rutter beat goalkeeper Robert Sanchez to the loose high ball, heading into an empty net.
Chelsea’s first opportunity came midway through the first half when Enzo Fernandez picked out Palmer’s run in behind, with only Bart Verbruggen to beat, he rolled a shot off the post.
He had the ball in the net with his next chance from another Fernandez pass, but he was well offside and the goal was quickly chalked off.
But it was third time lucky for Palmer with Chelsea’s next attack. Adam Webster horribly under-hit a pass back to Verbruggen which was pounced upon by Nicolas Jackson, and he unselfishly squared for the Blues’ number 20 to finish.
Brighton were drowning under pressure from Chelsea, who again thought they’d scored when Noni Madueke raced beyond the last line and teed up Jadon Sancho for an easy finish. The offside flag went up to deny the winger, and this decision was confirmed after a fairly lengthy VAR check.
Chelsea were awarded a penalty moments later when Sancho fell between the bodies of Rutter and Baleba. Palmer stepped up and sent Verbruggen the wrong way to put the hosts ahead.
Palmer had his hat-trick on the half-hour mark in sensational fashion, putting a free-kick from 25 yards right into the top corner.
Brighton should have pulled one back when Mats Wieffer rolled an effort from close range wide, but they got their reward from the resulting goal kick when Sanchez gifted the ball for Baleba to convert from close range.
From kick-off, Baleba brought a top save out of Sanchez with a barnstorming strike from distance as the tetchy mood around Stamford Bridge set back in.
Palmer whipped a delicious long ball over the top for Madueke to latch onto, and he sat down Webster before firing wide.
There was still time before the break for Palmer to grab his fourth goal, making an underlapping run inside of Sancho and then converting at the near post. With this, he became the first player in Premier League history to score four first-half goals in one game.
Chelsea got into half-time two goals ahead after Sanchez made another impressive save to keep out Welbeck’s low strike.
The visitors wanted a penalty on the other side of the break when Kaoru Mitoma fell under a challenge from Malo Gusto, but the referee was not interested in their protests.
Straight down the other end, Jackson did superbly well to bring down a high ball from Palmer and round Verbruggen in the process, but Webster recovered to make a goal-saving block.
Palmer, somehow, didn’t net his fifth when Moises Caicedo robbed Wieffer of the ball, with his one-on-one shot drifting wide.
Brighton wanted another penalty when Yasin Ayari took a tumble, yet again these calls went unheard.
With just over 20 minutes remaining, Chelsea thought they had a fifth through former Seagull Marc Cucurella, but he was offside on the second ball from a corner and it was disallowed.
A back-and-forth game lulled in the closing stages and Chelsea’s victory was confirmed after five minutes of added time.
Enzo Maresca’s side are now only a point off the top of the table, while Fabian Hurzeler has tasted defeat for first time as Brighton boss.
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