Chelsea's winless run continues after Bournemouth stalemate

Chelsea’s winless run in the Premier League continued after playing out to a goalless draw against Bournemouth at the Vitality Stadium on Sunday.

This season, Mauricio Pochettino’s team has only won one of their five league games. At the Vitality Stadium, they were booed off because they didn’t have any kind of edge.

The Blues haven’t scored in their last two games, and they’ve only scored five goals in the league this year.

As Pochettino tries to figure out how big of a job he has at Stamford Bridge, they are stuck in 14th place, closer to the bottom four than the top four.

“I cannot say that I am happy but it was a very competitive game. We should win 1-0 or 2-0 easily because in the first 30 minutes we had the chances,” Pochettino said.

“With 12 injuries and only three players that started today who were with us for these two weeks I think I need only need to say it was a really good effort.”

The former Tottenham and Paris Saint-Germain manager was hired during the offseason to clean up the mess left by Thomas Tuchel, Graham Potter, and Frank Lampard, who were all in charge of Chelsea during last year’s terrible season.

But so far, Pochettino hasn’t made a difference, even though Chelsea has spent £350 million on new players.

Untimely injuries haven’t helped, but the fact that Chelsea has mostly signed younger players has left Pochettino with an inexperienced team that doesn’t have the maturity to finish games.

“We need to prove our efficiency in front of goal. We need to be calm also but these circumstances are not always easy for the players. We cannot blame anyone,” Pochettino said.

“The fans are disappointed because of the situation but I am not worried about that because we really know what we are doing.”

Pochettino’s goal for this season was to compete for a spot in the Champions League, but based on this drab performance against winless Bournemouth, that goal already seems too high.

Even though it’s too early to say that Pochettino could be fired, he knows that Potter was fired by co-owner Todd Boehly after only seven months.

The last time Spurs played, they lost to Nottingham Forest, so Pochettino made two changes to the team. Summer signing Moises Caicedo, who cost a lot of money, was left off the squad, and Lesley Ugochukwu got his first Premier League start.

Early on, Chelsea tried to take the lead, but Enzo Fernandez’s shot from the edge of the box went right at Neto, and Raheem Sterling’s shot from a dangerous spot went way wide.

When the Senegalese striker hit his shot from 20 yards against the post, Nicolas Jackson got much closer.

Even though Chelsea started off well, bad defence nearly cost them the game when Dango Ouattara reached a cross without being marked and shot from close range, forcing Robert Sanchez to make a great save.

Gallagher had a good chance to put Chelsea ahead when he turned and shot from 10 yards out, but Neto dove to his right and made a great save.

Early in the second half, Chelsea thought they had finally taken the lead when Sterling’s free kick hit the bar and fell to Levi Colwill, who put it in the empty net. However, his goal was called back because he was offside.

But it was Bournemouth who finished stronger and Axel Disasi narrowly avoided conceding a penalty when his despairing lunge brought down Justin Kluivert just outside the area.

Sanchez saved the game for Chelsea in the 80th minute when he blocked Dominic Solanke’s shot with his legs.

Sterling could have won it with a close-range header that lacked the power to beat Neto, who also made a fine instinctive save to repel Cole Palmer’s close-range volley.