Chelsea‘s pre-season preparations ahead of the 2024-25 Premier League season concluded with a 1-1 draw at Stamford Bridge to Inter Milan, with goals from Marcus Thuram and Lesley Ugochukwu.
The Blues returned to their home ground on the back of defeats to Celtic, Manchester City and Real Madrid, a victory against Club America and a draw with Wrexham in their first five friendly matches.
Despite a particularly dominant first 45 minutes for the hosts, the Italian side scored the opening goal of the game thanks to a sumptuous strike from Thuram in the 26th minute.
Chelsea were the better team throughout the entire 90 minutes and created plenty of chances worthy of an equaliser against their opponents, but it took until the 90th minute for Ugocukwu to finally level the score with a volley from inside the area.
The result will mean little to Enzo Maresca, but the performance showed plenty of signs of promise ahead of their Premier League season opener next weekend.
Chelsea fail to capitalise on promising first half display
Having failed to impress in a majority of their pre-season fixtures, often falling to disappointing defeats such as their 4-1 loss to Celtic, Chelsea looked unlikely to cause the Italian champions much trouble ahead of the encounter.
However, that was far from the case with the hosts putting together numerous fast-paced, passing moves that took Inter Milan apart, but the Blues failed to capitalise on their chances.
Maresca would have been happy with his side’s 54% of the ball, much of their passing play happening in the opposition half, while his men also took nine shots to Inter Milan’s two.
Summer signing Marc Guiu was especially impressive in the first 45 minutes, coming close to hitting the net on several occasions only for Yann Sommer to pull off an excellent save to deny the Spaniard.
After all of Chelsea’s good work in the first half, they still found themselves, rather unfortunately, heading into the half-time break 1-0 down after Thuram scored one of Inter Milan’s two shots, a wonderful left-footed strike into the top right corner.
Chelsea’s defensive vulnerabilities persist
Chelsea’s frailty in the defensive areas has been apparent throughout the entirety of their pre-season preparations ahead of the 2024-25 Premier League campaign, and that continued in their final friendly against the Nerazzurri.
Despite most of the match being played in the Italian side’s half, Inter Milan looked especially dangerous when they were willing and able to break out from the back.
