Chelsea 0 Bournemouth 1 match report: Little shock as Blues lose again after late Glenn Murray header

Chelsea 0 Bournemouth 1

So much for fearsome fairytales. Little Red Riding Hood, in the form of a Bournemouth team created in Eddie Howe’s innocent image, met the Big Bad Wolf named Jose Mourinho at Stamford Bridge last evening, and gobbled him up whole.

Chelsea, denied their expected easy meal, were left to ponder the implications of another ruinous defeat in a bewilderingly traumatic season. The greatest condemnation was that Bournemouth’s winning goal, eight minutes from the end of normal time, was hardly a seismic shock.

It was a catalogue of errors, from Thibaut Courtois’ poor punch at a routine corner, to Bransilav Ivanovic’s casual attempt to prevent Steve Cook hooking the ball to the far post. Glenn Murray was under most pressure from his team-mate, Harry Arter, when he headed in from what looked a marginally offside position.

There is still a sense of dislocation at the Bridge, because the travails of the top four are disconcertingly irrelevant. The days when a loss like Manchester City’s, at Stoke, seemed central to Chelsea’s existence have vanished too quickly, so unexpectedly.

Hell will freeze over before Mourinho admits to a reappraisal of managerial style, but the signs of subtle readjustment to reality are beginning to emerge, even as he has to endure a torrent of boos and further taunts of “ you’re getting sacked in the morning”.

Ugly scars from his early-season posturing remain – not least those incurred in the alienation and excoriation of the former club doctor, Eva Carneiro – and even in the best case scenario it takes time for things to return to something approaching normality.

Mourinho had spoken beforehand of green shoots of recovery, signs of collective responsibility with and without the ball, which led to the conclusion “we are playing as a team again”. He spoke too soon.

Cesc Fabregas endured another tough evening for Chelsea (2015 Getty Images)

Bournemouth might have arrived without a win in their eight previous Premier League matches, but they impressed with their vivacity on the ball and their durability and defensive organisation out of possession.

These are the sort of prime-time experiences promised by promotion, so it was unsurprising Bournemouth’s 3,000 travelling fans provided the main soundtrack to the match. Their repeated reminders “We’ve got the Special One”, sung in homage to Howe, were readily excused.

Chelsea are still searching for a focal point in the absence of Diego Costa, whose introduction at half-time for the dismally uninvolved Oscar was overdue. In essence they started with four attacking midfield players who lack the intensity and instinct to get behind the defence.

They were alarmingly slack, initially vulnerable on the counter, and grateful for Courtois’ return. He saved brilliantly, twice, from Joshua King in the opening quarter of an hour after Junior Stanislas and then Matt Ritchie ran and passed their way through canyons of space in front of, and beyond, the Chelsea back four.

Ritchie, already linked to Manchester United, has the look of Premier League permanence. Arter, having recovered from hamstring issues, is another with the requisite class and unfulfilled ambition to survive relegation, should it occur. Not for the first time, Bournemouth’s lack of a natural goalscorer was obvious.

Jose Mourinho is incensed on the sidelines as Chelsea lose again (Getty Images)

Theoretically, Bournemouth were opportune opposition, since their season has been cruelly destabilised by injury. Tyrone Mings will not appear until next season; the fear is that their fate will be sealed by the time Max Gradel and Calum Wilson re-emerge in April.

They miss the leadership of captain Tommy Elphick and the dynamism provided from midfield by Marc Pugh. Christian Atsu, yet to play a game after being signed on a season-long loan from Chelsea, is rumoured to have a calf or a shin injury. He may even be a figment of everyone’s imagination.

Despite such handicaps, their goalkeeper, Artur Boruc, was rarely tested yesterday. His first moment of real alarm came 10 minutes after the interval, when Nemanja Matic, encased in a facemask, was caught unawares by a driven cross to the far post and headed over an unprotected goal.

It took Costa only 17 minutes to pick up his fourth booking of the season for pulling Ritchie back by his shoulders. This failed to improve his mood, since he had led wild-eyed penalty claims, seconds earlier, when his low cross from the left struck the sliding Simon Francis on the arm. He was fortunate to escape further punishment for kicking the ball away.

He epitomises Chelsea at the moment. A player living on previous glories, who generates more heat than light, his sense of entitlement is as unimpressive as it is unworthy. The mood music, in advance of Wednesday’s decisive Champions League group match against Porto, is loud and discordant.

Teams

Chelsea: (4-2-3-1) Courtois; Ivanovic, Zouma, Cahill, Baba (Traore, 82); Matic, Fabregas (Rémy, 82); Willian, Oscar (Costa, h-t), Pedro; Hazard.

Bournemouth: (4-4-1-1) Boruc; Smith, Francis, Cook, Daniels; Ritchie, Gosling, Surman, Stanislas; Arter; King (Murray, 79).

Referee: Mike Jones

Man of the match: Ritchie (Bournemouth)

Match rating: 6/10