April 22, 2026, 1:22 p.m. ET
Things are not going Chelsea’s way at the moment.
After a dismal 3-0 defeat to Brighton on Tuesday, April 21, the Blues have now lost five league games in a row without scoring a single goal in any of them.
The defeat saw Chelsea manager Liam Rosenior sacked just three months into his tenure, and he may have an unlikely culprit to at least partially blame: Marc Cucurella’s barber.
Several hours before Tuesday’s kickoff, an X post spread online that claimed Chelsea would be without João Pedro and Cole Palmer for the match at the Amex Stadium.
The post, which tagged several fantasy Premier League accounts and was quickly deleted, also included photos of Chelsea left back Cucurella getting his hair cut.
Neither Palmer nor Pedro made Chelsea’s squad for the game against Brighton. In Palmer’s case, there had been no previous knowledge of his hamstring injury.
The BBC reached out to Chelsea and said the club did not deny the authenticity of the post.
The lineup leak was not the first time Chelsea has dealt with the issue this season. The team’s lineup for a Champions League match against Paris Saint-Germain last month made the rounds hours ahead of kickoff.
Asked about the PSG leak, Rosenior said: “I wasn’t aware. I’m sure we’ll get to the bottom of that if that’s the case.”
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