Ipswich’s wait is over. Portman Road would not be denied its first Premier League win since April 2002. Chelsea’s title challenge, such as it was, will not reach 2025. Two defeats and a draw over the festive period leave them ten points behind Liverpool, not so much holding on coattails as left for dust.
Liam Delap did the damage, winning a penalty he clattered home, then laying up Omari Hutchinson for the second in a barnstorming performance. If Ipswich and Kieran McKenna revitalised hope in their battle against relegation, then Enzo Maresca’s targets for Chelsea are being redrawn to remaining in the top four.
Maresca’s reputation as a decisive manager was enhanced by dropping Robert Sánchez for Filip Jörgensen after a costly goalkeeping error against Fulham, amid five changes from Boxing Day’s defeat. With a sizeable squad to hand and clear signs of fatigue the selection bore a resemblance to a Conference League selection, particularly in the presence of João Félix in the forward line. Nicolas Jackson had been handed a rest, with Christopher Nkunku the most central of the attacking unit. A selection borne of tiredness or Ipswich’s status as a bottom-three club without a home win all season?
McKenna, facing a club he was heavily linked with last summer, only for the job to end up in the hands of Maresca, a competitor in last season’s Championship promotion race, was looking to extend Chelsea’s blue Christmas. He too had shuffled out a keeper, Christian Walton replacing Arijanet Muric. While Walton was making his first appearance since the opening day, Nathan Broadhead was making his first Premier League start.
As so often, his team started with real zest, Delap crashing into Levi Colwill with unseasonal intent. Broadhead was almost on the scoresheet in the opening moments, only for his shot from an Hutchinson pass to rattle off Tosin Adarabioyo and to safety. Such early energy brought reward. Leif Davis’s ball sent Delap away and Jörgensen was hasty in his challenge. The penalty was duly awarded. Did Delap accentuate contact? It looked that way. Chelsea’s case was decent but the referee’s call was followed.
Delap drilled home, he might have had another soon after, only for Jörgensen to partially redeem himself. Chelsea were sluggish, as lethargic in attack as defence, Félix seemingly incapable of staying upright when any Ipswich player came near him. His re-signing remains a riddle. Nkunku, too, was slow to pounce when Cole Palmer’s free-kick, swept with trademark indolence, hit the post. The Frenchman failed to beat Walton, franking his selection where Jörgensen had previously failed.
Ipswich’s soft underbelly, weighing down a team who win hearts through their commitment to attacking play, was exposed when Palmer’s pass found Félix in position to score and then perform an elaborate celebration targeted at the haters. Problematically for the one-time €100m-plus playmaker, he had been half a yard offside. Disturbingly for Ipswich, Palmer was now strolling with intent in far too much freedom, while Moisés Caicedo, who thrashed one effort, was growing in influence.
Hutchinson scores for the home side. Photograph: Chris Radburn/Reuters
Retaining his danger on the counter, Delap forced a near-post save from Jörgensen, which was in turn matched by Walton acrobatically tipping over a Palmer rocket. The Wythenshawe wizard could only smile ruefully, with the confidence of expecting more where that came from.
As if fired up by some Italian dressing-room invective, Chelsea began the second half with the greater energy. Wes Burns was required to head a Félix header off the line. Noni Madueke added to Walton’s save count at his near post. Such heavy pressure asked existential questions of Ipswich; surely life in the Premier League is about more than last-ditch defence and heading clear aerial bombardment.
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The answer came in the explosion of noise and joy that followed their second goal. Axel Disasi, close to a headline-writer’s dream, played a dreadful no-look pass into Delap’s path. The striker checked back as back-pedalling defenders tried to guess intentions. A stabbed pass gave Hutchinson room to score against a club that discarded him after two senior appearances. He celebrated with a backflip of vindication.
Maresca’s immediate response was to end Félix’s evening after a display to further deepen the mystery. On came Jackson to add more familiar shape to the forward line. Nkunku soon departed after a not much less ineffective evening, Jadon Sancho the latest attempt to answer what had become a creative fug, with Palmer forced to drop deeper to find a way back in. Delap, a one-man battering ram, holding off defenders and winning fouls, was meanwhile having the time of his life.
Teasing the ball past Caicedo and then holding off Marc Cucurella he forced another save from Jörgensen, whose performance as the game dragged on suggested the wisdom of Maresca’s selection in that department. Jackson’s attempted rescue mission saw him miss a one-on-one, and his colleagues began to boil over in frustration, Palmer rendered a passenger. Ipswich could believe that this, after the previous disappointments, could be the one.
