Chelsea star slammed as “total waste of money” following “pedestrian” FA Cup exit | OneFootball

Former Blue Craig Burley has torn into Christopher Nkunku following Chelsea’s defeat to Brighton on Saturday evening.

The Blues turned in a disappointing performance as they got dumped out of the FA Cup in the fourth round after slumping to a 2-1 defeat on the south coast.

Chelsea took an early lead after Cole Palmer’s cross come shot was pushed into back of the net by Bart Verbruggen in the Brighton goal, before Georginio Rutter equalised and Karou Mitoma scored a second half winner.

Burley tears into Nkunku

Enzo Maresca made five changes to the side, with Nkunku leading the line in the absence of Nicolas Jackson and Marc Guiu amongst them.

Nkunku struggled to make a meaningful impact on proceedings, which was highlighted by the fact he had just one touch in the Brighton box.

The 27-year-old missed a good chance when played in by Moises Caicedo, but instead of taking the shot on he opted to pass to Palmer and the opportunity was gone.

Nkunku failed to make an impact against Brighton. (Photo by Steve Bardens/Getty Images)

Steve Sidwell put the miss down to a lack of confidence having not played much, but Burley another ex-Blue was far less complementary.

“There was no cutting edge to the game,” he told ESPN.

[Cole] Palmer has stopped influencing games like he was. Nkunku up front, I mean what a total waste of money he’s been, and on top of that they are looking a bit fragile at the back.”

Burley went on to tear into the Chelsea’s performance and labelled the Blues as pedestrian, he accused them of doing absolutely nothing with the possession they had.

“The discussion earlier in the season was whether they could stay in the title race,” he added.

“We kind of expected them to slip but they’ve slipped back into this Graham Potter, Mauricio Pochettino, Thomas Tuchel pedestrian passing game.

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“57 percent possession, way more than Brighton, but what did they do with it? Absolutely nothing.”

Chelsea return to the south coast on Friday night to take on Brighton again, where they have to find a way of taking the three points.