Xabi Alonso says his Chelsea side must show more desire in defence, and warns it will take time to fix their frailties at the back after they drew 2-2 with Hull City at Stamford Bridge on Saturday.
Chelsea took the lead after just seven minutes through Morgan Rogers, but it was Hull who went into the break 2-1 up after they profited on Chelsea's defensive uncertainty to grab two through Mohamed Belloumi. Hull were good for their lead, but Chelsea drew level in the 65th minute through João Pedro. Both teams had chances to win, with Mohamed-Ali Cho drawing a good save from Emi Martínez, but the match ended all square.
It's now 20 Premier League matches since Chelsea kept a clean sheet, and they've already shipped nine goals in their first four top flight games this term. Alonso admits it is a concern.
"I hope one day you appreciate a boring game and we win," Alonso said. "It repeats some patterns we are making. It will take time to fix the moments. We still need to be competing and not to give away easy chances for them to come back. For the first goal we can do much better. That momentum we had changed after the goal, the mood, the score of the game. We are talking and addressing it, but it's having an impact on performances.
"I think that we are attacking better than defending. It's a big topic and a big theme for us. For sure it's just four games, but the dynamic ... I don't like it and we need to do much better [in] open play, set pieces, long balls, this toughness, this competitive sense we can do better."
And when asked if they need to show more desire in their defending, Alonso answered: "We can do better. We can do better for sure. Even when we have the lead, a very important part of the game is to hold together, to keep the distances, to go intense in the situation to defend and I'm sure that we can do better."