Xabi Alonso was calm at the microphone. Chelsea had just completed only 146 passes, their lowest total in a Premier League match since detailed passing data began in 2003-04, and his answer was that a percentage is not what he judges his team on.

“You need to have context to every data for sure,” the Chelsea manager told reporters after Sunday’s 4-3 win over Brighton. “After 30 minutes we have scored [to make it] 3-0, probably in that moment we have played too much with the result instead of keep playing. So the data is not important, it is how you play and what we can do better.”

Alonso’s team finished the match with 25.6 per cent of the ball and 146 completed passes, the lowest pass total by Chelsea in a Premier League game since 2003-04. Brighton’s 74.4 per cent possession was the highest on record by any side in a Premier League game against Chelsea over the same span.

3-0 up, then almost gone

Romeo Lavia opened the scoring in the fourth minute. Pedro Neto added a second and João Pedro made it three inside 32 minutes against his former club.

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Then the match unravelled. Malick Yalcouye pulled one back, João Pedro deflected the ball into his own net in the second half, and Pascal Gross headed in late on. Cole Palmer had already restored the two-goal cushion in the 74th minute, and it was his strike that decided it.

João Pedro’s evening produced one of the more curious lines in Premier League history. He became only the sixth player in the competition to register a goal, an assist and an own goal in the same match, and the first to do so for Chelsea.

Not the plan at the Emirates

Alonso, appointed on a four-year contract in May and in the job since 1 July, pushed back on any reading that a game like this is the football he wants Chelsea to play.

“It’s not that this is going to be replicated against Arsenal,” he said of the next Premier League fixture.

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He framed the passing sequence as a squad still finding each other.

“It’s quite normal. It happens in many teams, other teams that they have already worked together and they have more games together.”

The result kept Chelsea perfect after two Premier League matchdays. Their next league game is away at Arsenal.

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