Middlesbrough beat EPL giants Chelsea 1-0 in the first leg of the EFL Cup quarterfinals in the early hours of Wednesday morning (10th) to take the lead in the first leg of the EFL Cup. Chelsea had an overwhelming advantage in this match, but their attacking power was extremely poor. Galpenma, who played the role of "false 9", was even 5 yards away from the goal and shot high into an empty net, which was really outrageous, so they have to hope that they will return to their home ground in the next round to turn the tables.
Chelsea's lack of reliable strikers has led to a lot of wasted chances to score goals in past matches, so team leader Putrajit Tino simply pushed forward midfielder Golpenma to act as a "false 9" in this match, hoping to use this 21-year-old starlet with a smooth flow to score goals. However, it was not to be. Chelsea had 18 shots on goal, 12 more than their opponents, but only 5 of them hit the target.
On the other hand, even though Middlesbrough had two players injured in the first 20 minutes of the match, and had only 28% of the ball in possession, they still managed to counterattack efficiently, with 21-year-old wing Hayden Sagney scoring in the 37th minute to open the scoring.
Towards the end of the first half, Chelsea got a golden opportunity, Middlesbrough goalkeeper Tang Gao Hua saved his hand, Golpen immediately 5 yards away from the door in the air, surprisingly shot high, shot to keep Chelsea's scorer Ferrando Tolis missed a century of open goal. After the change of sides, although Chelsea strengthened the attack, but it was all just an itch, and finally lost 0-1 and back, burst 5.3 times the home w.
After the match, Chelsea manager Pucitino admitted that his team made too many mistakes and were not calm enough in front of the goal: "We are very disappointed and frustrated because we were punished for our mistakes.
