Koulibaly sees red in Chelsea's 3-0 hammering at Elland Road

Kalidou Koulibaly is sent off for a tactical foul on Sunday in Chelsea's 3-0 loss at Elland Road. (Photo credit: Talk Sport)

It is early days but the premier league will never stop serving us shocks and reminding teams, no matter their size or history, no one has the monopoly of magic. If there’s any team that needs another reminder, it will be Chelsea.

The Blues went to Leeds with high hopes of returning to winning ways after the dramatic 2-2 draw against Tottenham at the Stamford Bridge Stadium but they returned empty handed with lots of headaches ahead of their next fixture.

Chelsea lined up to attack and hold the ball with no recognized striker but lots of midfielders; the absence of N’golo Kante and Matteo Kovacic meant the Blues needed to improvise in the middle but Thomas Tuchel must admit he got it wrong.

Leeds United kept things simple with the same line up and went about their business diligently; There were gaps in the middle to exploit with Jorginho and Connor Galhagger the men chosen to do the job. Help didn’t come from Ruben Loftus Cheek who was playing from the wingback positions.

Benjamin Mendy set the Blues on fire early on; the pass to him from Tiago Silva was harmless, he dilly-dallied on the ball and Aaronson caught him in possession and the new boy tapped into an empty net for the curtain raiser.

Before Chelsea could get over that, red hot Rodrigo rose the highest to head home the second from a Jack Harrison free kick. Chelsea kept probing but Illian Meslier and the Leeds defense won’t give anything away to the visitors.

The second half wasn’t any different. Rodrigo’s attempt to divert a ball home fell to Harrison who made no mistakes from close range for Leeds United’s third goal. Tuchel decided to ring changes but it went from bad to worse from there.

Kalidou Koulibaly who was already on a yellow tugged back Gelhardt and he received his first sending off in the colors of Chelsea. The visitors had three shots on target but never looked like scoring as they slip five points off the top of the log. Leeds moved up to champions league places with seven points from three games.