Liam Rosenior spent much of his pre-match press conference talking up the importance of this FA Cup tie. Important for Chelsea to win their first domestic cup since 2018. Important they do not underestimate Championship Wrexham. Important they take it seriously.
Then his starters and substitutes were revealed, and that team sheet felt like something of a contradiction. No Cole Palmer in the squad. No Enzo Fernandez. No Moises Caicedo.
Nine changes. A new back three set-up, with Tosin Adarabioyo at the heart of it and captaining the side, despite a fair few Chelsea fans not considering him up to their club’s standards.
While we can criticise Rosenior for selecting such a weakened side, in theory, even those B listers on the fringes of the Premier League outfit should have had more than enough to not struggle so embarrassingly versus a Championship side playing with 10 men.
It was hard not to come out of this clash thinking of Chelsea’s patchy recruitment therefore as, for every success story like Joao Pedro, there are too many more not pulling their weight.
Liam Rosenior’s team selection appeared contradictory to his press conference comments, but the Chelsea boss would have expected his fringe players to perform better against Wrexham
NERVY SANCHEZ NEEDS PICKING UP
Robert Sanchez had a poor game away at Arsenal when Chelsea conceded two goals from corners and his passing from back filled nobody with confidence at the Emirates Stadium.
Poor enough to be dropped in place of Filip Jorgensen for their next trip to Aston Villa? Rosenior thought so, and was somewhat justified when they won 4-1 at Villa Park.
In axing Sanchez, however, Rosenior has seemingly dropped his confidence also.
Here at Wrexham’s Racecourse Ground, Chelsea’s goalkeeper appeared riddled with nerves as he was rarely sure he was making the right decision, not least when the Championship side were chipping balls over the top of Adarabioyo and Benoit Badiashile.
They are far from the fastest defenders going in the game, and several times, Sanchez contemplated charging into that space behind them to snuff out the danger. He regularly hesitated in doing so, however, and that was how Wrexham opened the scoring in this FA Cup clash.
It looked like Sanchez could have got to the ball before Sam Smith, who was still trying to catch up to it. Afraid of making a mistake, Sanchez retreated, Adarabioyo and Badiashile never caught Smith, and Chelsea conceded. It is hard not to feel that Sanchez, who looked impressive when confident over this campaign, now needs picking up all over again.
Robert Sanchez’s confidence appeared to have been hit by being dropped in midweek and Rosenior must now pick him back up
Sanchez’s hestiatation at coming off his line contributed to Wrexham opening the scoring
PEDRO A CUT ABOVE, AGAIN
Rosenior would have preferred not to have to use Joao Pedro here with a trip to Paris Saint-Germain up next in the Champions League. Instead, he was forced into bringing on the Brazilian after 85 minutes as Chelsea were locked in a 2-2 draw.
He looked a level above everyone else once on the pitch, and it is the weight of his passing which has become so much more impressive as well as his finishing.
There was one pass from Joao Pedro in behind into Alejandro Garnacho, whose cross was dummied by Marc Cucurella as Pedro Neto blasted the ball into the crossbar.
Joao Pedro made sure of the win here by scoring in stoppage time of extra time.
Joao Pedro looked a level above anyone on the pitch after coming on and the forward helped Chelsea eventually get over the line
VAR SPOT ON, DESPITE CROWD CHANTS
‘F*** VAR’ sang the Wrexham fans when it was conducting a check. Better get used to this if you are aiming to reach the Premier League.
However, the officiating team were entirely justified in dismissing George Dobson for his aggressive challenge on Alejandro Garnacho.
