Chelsea one game away from nightmare scenario despite Cole Palmer heroics against Brighton

Chelsea have claimed an important Premier League victory against Brighton thanks to Cole Palmer, though the match has left another of Enzo Maresca's players in a precarious place moving forwards

It is all smiles at Stamford Bridge this afternoon as Chelsea emerge the 4-2 victors over Brighton, although Enzo Maresca will be keeping a wary eye on one player as a result of events today.

Attacks were firmly on top during the opening 45 minutes as first the visitors struck through Georginio Rutter. After that it was the Cole Palmer show as the 22-year-old struck twice each either side of a Carlos Baleba reply to take a their two-goal lead into the break.

Two goals from open play, one from the penalty spot and the other a sublime free-kick into the top right corner of Bart Verbruggen's net - and his haul might have been even more on a different day. Marc Cucurella looked to have been the only other Chelsea man on the scoresheet before the final whistle, however VAR would have the final say and his conversion was ruled out for offside.

Interestingly that wasn't the Spaniard's only contribution to the Saturday afternoon clash, but in hindsight his manager will be hoping the defender had kept quiet up to that point due to the conundrum that could now unfold in the coming weeks.

It was in the 33rd minute against his former club when Cucurella was shown the yellow card by referee Peter Bankes. This moves the 26-year-old onto four cautions for the new campaign after only six matches, having been similarly reprimanded against Wolves, Bournemouth and West Ham.

Maresca noticed this and made sure to remove his full-back from the action before anything went wrong on the afternoon, though this now presents a problem he will have to manage moving forwards due to the Premier League's rules on the accumulation of yellow cards.

Once reaching the threshold of five within the first 19 matches of the season, a player is to serve an automatic one-match ban. Chelsea are still some way away from reaching that stage of the campaign, so Cucurella is walking dangerous ground whenever he takes to the field.

The next time he may do so in the league is against Nottingham Forest, and if he were to pick up another in that meeting then he would be ruled out of making the trip to Anfield to face Liverpool after the international break. That is the start of a tricky run for the Blues as they face challengers Newcastle United, Manchester United and Arsenal in the following weeks.

Currently Renato Veiga has been the stand-in in this position, whilst Ben Chilwell is building up his match fitness having returned to his new coach's plans.

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