The Chelsea team the last time the Blues named an unchanged side 3 games in a row | OneFootball

Before kick off in today’s game against Newcastle, it was noted that this was the first time all season that Enzo Maresca had named an unchanged lineup for the third game in a row.

But when people looked into it, it went even deeper. If you look at Premier League games only, this is the first time that we’ve named an unchanged lineup in three games since December 2018.

What was going on at Chelsea in December 2018?

When we hear a stat like that we always like to cast our minds back to the games in question – what was going on in December 2018, exactly?

Well, if you remember, it was Maurizio Sarri’s first (and only) season in charge. Things were going pretty well in terms of results, and we were progressing in Europe too. Fans weren’t too sure about this new style of football, but results were still solid and nobody had worked out that this new goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga was a liability yet.

Chelsea’s unchanged lineup from 2018

The line-up in question had Kepa in goal, with a back four of Marcos Alonso, David Luiz, Antonio Rudiger and Cesar Azpilicueta ahead of him.

The midfield was the classic trio which we would see for years to come – N’Golo Kante, Mateo Kovacic and Jorginho.

The front 3 was another unit we got pretty used to over the years – Pedro, Willian and Eden Hazard.

In the first game we beat Brighton 2-1, with goals from Pedro and Hazard. The second was a brutal home defeat to Claude Puel’s Leicester, with Jamie Vardy scoring from a James Maddison assist.

Normal order was restored in the third game, with an Eden Hazard double seeing us past Watford, 2-1.

Things then stabilised for a month or so, before a 2-0 defeat to Arsenal, a 4-0 defeat to Bournemouth and a 6-0 defeat to Man City the space of a few weeks really saw the wheels starting to come off.