Pat Nevin said Chelsea midfielder Jorginho was targeted and, as a result, found it difficult to make an impact in the 3-2 defeat to West Ham on Saturday.
The Blues still had more possession of the ball, chances, and shots on target in the game, but some individual mistakes let them down once again.
The errors proved costly as they went home without any point and eventually lost their spot at the top of the Premier League table.
Nevin believes Jorginho, in particular, had a hard time at London Stadium.
“Back in [Maurizio] Sarri’s days, teams figured out [how to] stop Jorginho,” Nevin told Chelsea TV.
“Lots of teams put a man on Jorginho, right?
“We moved on, changed, and adapted, then people stop doing that, I guess.
“Because you’d think, stop him, and we’ve got [N’Golo] Kante or [Mateo] Kova.
“They [West Ham] really did a job on Jorginho again today. They closed him down and didn’t give him any space.
“When he [Jorginho] got the ball, he tried to look forward, he had nothing and had to go to the sides.
“He struggled a wee bit today to put himself on our team.
“At this point, I’m desperate to get Kante and Jorginho or Kova and Jorginho back together.
“Against good teams, [we need] any two of those three in the centre.”
To be fair to Jorginho, he still made nine progressive passes (via FBRef) with Reece James being the only Chelsea player to have completed more (10).
It is just that only one of these progressive passes resulted in a direct chance for his teammate.
Not to mention that Thomas Tuchel also revealed after the game that Jorginho has been playing through hip pain recently.
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