Levi Colwill recognises fresh challenges have been thrown Chelsea’s way in recent weeks and he believes the Blues are prepared to deal with them over the remainder of the season, starting with our visit to Crystal Palace today.
We travel to Selhurst Park without a win in three, a sequence of results not in keeping with what was otherwise an excellent first half of the 2024/25 campaign. With matchday 20 upon us, Colwill has spoken about what he has noticed has been different in our recent fixtures.
‘The way teams are playing against us, they respect us a lot more,’ said the defender.
‘They’re changing the way they play and they’re setting up in low blocks and hitting us on the counter-attack to make it as hard as possible for us.
‘We are adapting to that, we are getting better with every training session, we are preparing for games even better to overcome the challenges because they are going to keep getting thrown at us, and we have to try to find a way around it.’
Colwill expects a similar story in south London. Oliver Glasner’s Eagles like to set up with five defenders and use their speedy attackers to hurt teams on the break.
‘Palace are a really good team - when they played us at the Bridge we drew, and it was a very tough game.
‘What they’re really good at is their low block. They’re amazing at being compact as a team and hitting on the counter-attack, so it’s going to be a really tough game at their place, but we’re going there to win, there is no two ways about it.
‘It would be the perfect time to bounce back, especially for us and the fans.’