Chelsea were held to a 2-2 draw by Hull City on Saturday, with manager Xabi Alonso branding his players ‘soft’ and their defence criticised as ‘weak’.

Morgan Rogers gave the Blues an early lead after just seven minutes, but two goals from Mohamed Belloumi put the Tigers into a shock lead by half-time.

Joao Pedro rescued a point for the home team at Stamford Bridge, but Chelsea’s defence remains cause for great concern.

Alonso has taken charge of six games as Blues boss and the only clean sheet has come against Luton Town in the Carabao Cup.

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Chelsea’s four Premier League games so far have seen nine goals conceded, with only Crystal Palace (11) and Ipswich Town (10) having leakier defences.

Alonso labelled his players as ‘soft’ after the draw on Saturday, saying: ‘I hope that one day you say it was a boring game and we won.

‘For sure, it’s some repeated patterns that we are making. It will take time to fix them. When we get the lead, you still need to be competing and not give the chance so easily for them to come back.

‘Especially in the first goal, we can do much better. It was too soft to give them this hope because until then we were controlling, we were creating chances … It was from a long ball, two bounces. The way it happened, you need to be very, very aware, and very ready that the danger can come from any situation.

‘If you are soft or if you are not prepared, you will get punished.’

Former Swansea City and Everton defender Ashley Williams agreed with Alonso’s assessment and feels the manager has a lot of work to do.

‘They’re 20th in the league for shots faced,’ said the Wales international. ‘I think this team is so good going forward, there’s such an emphasis on in possession and what they can do at the top end of the pitch that in their defensive transitions, they’re struggling so much.

‘They just seem so weak at the back and disjointed. They’re so comfortable with the ball but in transition they just seem to be all over the place.

‘If you’re a top team in the Premier League you can’t just not be able to deal with long straight balls and keep missing headers. It’s all so weak and easy and soft.’

Pedro, who scored his third goal in four league games this season, admitted that Chelsea need to improve and do so quickly.

‘We have to adapt quickly, as soon as possible, because we know how the Premier League is,’ said the 24-year-old. ‘If you drop points, in the end it will be difficult to recover. We need to adapt quickly because if you want to compete, you have to improve on that.

‘We knew if they got in front they were going to sit at the back and wait for us to come and play for the counter-attack. It was a tough game.

‘In the end, we could get one point, but like I said, we need to improve and I think we’re going to improve soon.’


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