Thomas Tuchel accused his side of failing to execute the match plan after Conor Coady’s dramatic late header cost Chelsea precious points in the battle for third.
The Blues looked to be cruising towards three precious points in front of owner elect Todd Boehly.
Romelu Lukaku had given them the lead from the penalty spot shortly before the hour mark with his first goal since December 29. And he then doubled Chelsea’s advantage with a lovely finish from the edge of the box two minutes later.
But Wolves substitute Trincao produced an even better striker than the Belgian’s at the other end of the field soon after coming on to give the visitors hope. And Coady took the gloss of Boehly’s big day with an equaliser in the seventh minute of stoppage time at the end of the game.
A furious Tuchel said: “It’s about the structure and where you lose the ball.
“The opponent takes a crazy approach because they have nothing to lose and we could not score the third goal. The pass is missing, the dribbling is wrong, the decision is wrong.
“So at some point we played like we were 2-0 down rather than 2-0 up.
“I need to watch it again, but it was a lack of execution of discipline and execution of the match plan throughout a whole half and we get punished for it.
“At half-time, I reminded the team to stick to the plan with more discipline, we did this and we were 2-0 up and again we took too many risks. We invited big chances and then you lose confidence and you allow the opponents to smell something is possible when it’s absolutely unnecessary.”
Chelsea found Wolves keeper Jose Sa in good form and a decent effort from Timo Werner was denied early on.
Romain Saiss missed two good openings at the other end before Werner found the net but this time the German was adjudged to have fouled Saiss, who was heavily involved in the game. Ruben Loftus-Cheek then hit the net but after a long VAR check the goal was rightly ruled out for offside, a decision that left Boehly nonplussed up in the posh seats.
Sa made another good save to deny Lukaku and, soon after the break, he was in action to deny Werner again.
After giving them headaches in the first half, VAR Jarred Gillett then gave Chelsea what looked a soft and not even in the box penalty at first glimpse. And from it, Lukaku sent Sa the wrong way.
He then applied a fine finish after Coady’s poor pass hit Ruben Neves and turned the ball back to Chelsea and the Blues looked on their way to a comfortable win.
Boehly had punched the air and whistled with delight at Lukaku’s first goal but he and the rest of Chelsea’s fans were soon biting their nails.
Having looked dead and buried at 75 minutes Wolves, whose manager Bruno Lage missed the game with Covid but was calling the shots on the phone from the training ground, made their third and final substitute when Trincao followed Chiquinho and Hwang Hee-Chan from the bench.
And Chiquinho was involved in the build-up to Trincao’s delightful goal, the Portuguese sweeping home the sweetest of strikes to give his side hope of a comeback.
They laid siege to Chelsea’s goal for the remainder of the game and Reece James wasn’t alone in wondering where the officials had found six minutes of added time from when the board went up after 90.
The home side appeared to have clung on when the clock ticked beyond that mark but up popped Coady with a solid, last-gasp header to take the gloss off what had been a positive 24 hours for Boehly and Co.
Wolves goalkeeper coach Tony Roberts took the media duties in Lage’s absence.
He said: “To come here to the home of the European champions, to go two behind in a mad five minutes and then come back like that, to keep going for 95, 96 minutes, shows how strong we are.
“The lads are buzzing but at the same time disappointed they didn’t win it.”
