Chelsea suffered yet another set-back in what has been a stuttered start to their title defence. The Blues lost 2-1 at home to Palace today in what was Jose Mourinho’s second defeat at home in 100 games whilst in charge of Chelsea.

Chelsea dominated the first half but failed to capitalise. It wasn’t until after the hour mark that the deadlock was broken, when Bakary Sako scored via Yannick Bolasie’s low cross.

The Blues fought back and substitute Radamel Falcao headed in to level the scoring on the 80th minute – his first goal for Chelsea. However Crystal Palace responded almost instantly and regained the lead as Joel Ward scored his second of the season, a goal that proved to be the winner.

The result leaves Chelsea eight points behind leaders Manchester City after four games. It’s not a disastrous start, but it certainly isn’t what anyone was expecting.

Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho had this to say on the game: “We didn’t deserve to lose. But Palace gave us a very difficult game. The result should be a draw, which would still be bad for us. We did enough not to lose.”

Crystal Palace manager Alan Pardew was impressed by his side, labeling the game as one of the best since he took the reins: “It was a really good performance today – one of the best performances I’ve seen from one of my teams in terms of composure. We can frighten teams with our pace and we did that from start to finish. Our defenders had to defend really well and they did.”

[Quotes via BBC Sport]

Here’s how we rate the Chelsea team:

Courtois – 6

Ivanovic – 5

Cahill – 6

Zouma – 6

Azpilicueta – 7

Matic – 6

Fabregas – 6

Pedro – 6.5

Willian – 5

Hazard – 6

Costa – 6

Subs:

Kenedy – 6

Falcao – 7

Loftus-Cheek – 6