Chelsea’s title tilt took a proper kicking at Elland Road, slipping to a daft 3-1 defeat against a Leeds side who was winless in four and sat fourth bottom before kick off. It felt like a free hit for the home crowd, and they smashed it, helped along by a Chelsea performance that looked half asleep for most of the first half.
Enzo Maresca tinkered with his line up, leaving Neto, Reece James and Wesley Fofana on the bench, but whatever freshness he imagined was nowhere to be seen. Leeds was up after six minutes, Jaka Bijol towering over Liam Delap from a routine corner and thumping a header past Robert Sanchez. Chelsea’s marking looked like they’d just woke up on the coach.
The visitors never really got going, missing Moises Caicedo after his daft red card against Arsenal. Without him, they lack any kind of bite. Leeds sensed it too, rattling balls into the box and watching Chelsea defenders twitch. Pascal Struijk grazed a header wide, and Delap scuffed one at the other end, which summed up the away side’s mood frazzled and flat.
The second goal, right before half time, was a hammer blow. Ao Tanaka picked it up outside the box and absolutely leathered a strike that waved past Sanchez before the keeper had blinked. Chelsea have never overturned a two goal deficit away at the break in the league, and honestly, they never looked like doing it here either.
Neto came on and sparked things briefly, smashing home from close range on 50 minutes after Jamie Gittens clipped a clever cross into the six yard box. It was Neto’s fifth of the campaign and, for a moment, Chelsea remembered they was meant to be in a title race. Delap hammered into the side netting, Maresca throwing shapes on the touchline as if that’d change anything.
Cole Palmer got a cameo first game in two months thanks to an injury spell that peaked when he fractured his toe by stubbing it on a door, which is very Chelsea 2025. His link with Alejandro Garnacho almost dragged the Blues back, Garnacho fizzing a ball across for Palmer, who drove a low effort inches wide.
But Chelsea went full circus act for the killer blow. Malo Gusto rolled a hospital pass into the box, Tosin Adarabioyo panicked, then Sanchez joined the chaos. Noah Okafor pinched the loose ball, his shot blocked, and Dominic Calvert Lewin was there to shovel in from about a yard. Maresca stood staring like someone had stolen his wallet.
A first defeat in eight leaves Chelsea stuck in fourth, nine points off Arsenal, and this felt like more than a bump more like a tyre shredding. Lose to a side that’s been battered for a month and you don’t look like champions, you look like a group of players wondering what on earth hit them.