Colwill: Blues Must Seize Break to Rebound

Chelsea defender Levi Colwill has called on his teammates to make the most of the international break after a painful 3-0 Premier League defeat to west London rivals Brentford left Xabi Alonso’s side with plenty to fix.

The Blues were undone by three second-half goals at the Gtech Community Stadium on Friday night. Jaidon Anthony opened the scoring in the 61st minute with a close-range header from a corner, Igor Thiago added a second on the counter-attack late on, and substitute Fabio Carvalho sealed the win deep into stoppage time.

Chelsea had controlled much of a tight first half but collapsed after the break. The result left them with seven points from five matches — two wins, one draw and two defeats — and a league-high 12 goals conceded. They have yet to keep a clean sheet in the Premier League this season under Alonso.

Colwill, who captained the side in Reece James’ absence and was left out of Thomas Tuchel’s England squad, did not hide from the scale of the problems. Speaking after the match and later on the club’s website, the 23-year-old admitted Chelsea had been “bullied” at set-pieces and failed to maintain their standards once they fell behind.

“It was tough,” Colwill said. “First of all, conceding from a set-piece isn’t the best, and then we tried to push and maybe over-exposed ourselves and played some passes we shouldn’t and forced it. I feel we needed to relax and not push too hard for the equaliser; we needed to believe it would come if we continued playing our football. But I think we pushed too hard to get it and they hurt us on the counter.

“They get the second goal and then the third goal really hit home and hurt. The second half we weren’t good enough, obviously, and we’ve got a lot to work on during the international break.”

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He stressed that the entire squad must share responsibility rather than relying on the attack. “We can’t rely on our front three to pull us out of danger — we all need to help each other. We’ve got a lot of room to improve.”

Looking ahead, Colwill struck a more optimistic note about the three-week pause. “Luckily we’ve got a while now to try and improve. Hopefully, we will come out the other side flying, pick up our play, and become a better team.”

The defeat ends a difficult run for Alonso, who has seen his side take just one point from their last three league games after a promising start. Chelsea return to Premier League action at home to Bournemouth on October 10. Until then, Colwill and several other non-internationals will remain at Cobham as the manager works to tighten the defence and restore consistency.