There were a few boos at full time. There have been not many occasions when Chelsea<\/a> have suffered without the injured Cole Palmer this season. Yet while they have managed to cope without their most influential attacker in recent weeks, the youngest side in the Premier League certainly could have done with Palmer\u2019s ingenuity when it came to producing a moment of magic to unlock Sunderland\u2019s outstanding defence.<\/p>\n Easily the most impressive of the promoted sides, Sunderland were competitive from the start. They were full of energy, organised at the back and aided by the flexibility of their 5-4-1 system, which allowed the visitors to put numbers behind the ball and then flood midfield through the willingness of their centre-backs to step forward when possession was regained.<\/p>\n Chelsea, who made eight changes to the team that thumped Ajax<\/a> in the Champions League, struggled to solve the tactical conundrum posed by R\u00e9gis Le Bris. A fine opening goal from Garnacho, who had a point to prove after being taken off at half-time during last week\u2019s win at Nottingham Forest<\/a>, was not a sign of things to come during an even first half. Instead Sunderland warmed to their task, Granit Xhaka and Noah Sadiki working hard to stifle Mois\u00e9s Caicedo and Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez in midfield, and nobody could argue that they were fortunate to be back on level terms after 22 minutes.<\/p>\n Alejandro Garnacho of Chelsea scores the opening goal, his first for the club. Photograph: Alex Broadway\/Getty Images<\/p>\n The visitors responded well to going behind. It had seemed a long afternoon was in store for Sunderland when Chelsea\u2019s wingers combined to devastating effect in the fourth minute. There was a surge out of defence from Pedro Neto to spark a counterattack down the right and when the ball was played to the opposite flank Garnacho had room to drive at Nordi Mukiele, swerve outside and slam a low shot through Robin Roefs for his first goal since joining from Manchester United for \u00a340m.<\/p>\n Yet Chelsea did not inject enough intensity into their efforts to push on. They had a new configuration in attack, Jo\u00e3o Pedro\u2019s deployment as a No 10 allowing Marc Guiu to make his first league start since signing from Barcelona last year, but it was a work in progress. Guiu, who was recalled from a brief loan spell at Sunderland after Chelsea lost Liam Delap to injury and loaned Nicolas Jackson to Bayern Munich at the end of the transfer window, found it difficult to escape robust attention from Dan Ballard and Lutsharel Geertruida.<\/p>\n Isidor was more effective for Sunderland at the other end. His hold-up play caused problems and was in the right place to make it 1-1. Enzo Maresca, immune to the charms of English football\u2019s new embrace of getting it launched, looked on in frustration as Chelsea\u2019s failure to deal with a long throw from Mukiele led to Isidor, played onside by Josh Acheampong, turning in a shot from Bertrand Traor\u00e9.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Football Daily<\/p>\n Kick off your evenings with the Guardian’s take on the world of football<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Quick GuideChelsea 1-2 Sunderland key statsShow \u2022 Sunderland\u2019s 17 points from their opening nine Premier League games is the best return by a promoted club at this stage since Hull City in 2008-09 (20).<\/p>\n \u2022 After Wilson Isidor’s equaliser (above), Sunderland have had six goals scored by French players in the Premier League this season (Isidor x 4, Le F\u00e9e x 1, Mukiele x 1). Excluding own goals, only Manchester City have had more scored from a specific nation this term (Norway, Haaland, x 11).<\/p>\n Photograph: Chris Foxwell\/Shutterstock Editorial<\/p>\n Thank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n Chelsea were in a contest. Isidor, now with the bit between his teeth, thrashed a shot just wide. Chelsea had to up the tempo. Trai Hume cleared off the line from Garnacho but the hosts had grown ponderous as half-time approached.<\/p>\n There was no improvement at the start of the second half. Garnacho had faded after a bright start. The Argentinian\u2019s final act before being replaced by Est\u00eav\u00e3o Willian was to send a wild shot high and wide.<\/p>\n Est\u00eav\u00e3o, unfortunate to be dropped after starring against Ajax, brought more excitement from the right. Still, though, Sunderland remained resolute. They compressed the space and forced Chelsea to rely on deep crosses. Jo\u00e3o Pedro, who has not scored since August, was quiet. Guiu looked tired by the time he made way for Jamie Gittens.<\/p>\n Sunderland were comfortable. Roefs barely had to make a save during the second half. The game ticked into six minutes of added time, with Chelsea still pressing. Then Geertruida won possession and sent a long ball to the substitute, Brian Brobbey. He held the ball up, waited for support and found it from Talbi, who ran forward and threaded a brilliant shot past Robert S\u00e1nchez.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It began so well for Chelsea. They led through Alejandro Garnacho\u2019s first goal for the club and looked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225042,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-225041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1761411788_629_2700.jpg\")
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