Chelsea just suffered a 1-3 defeat against Man City in the Super Sunday match of round 23 of the Premier League. This result pushed them down to 6th place on the rankings with 40 points, 1 point less than the 4th ranked team, Man City. The gap in points is not big, but the performance of The Blues in recent times has sounded the alarm bell for Enzo Maresca and his students.
"I think Chelsea are a better team than they were 2-3 months ago. Failures like this will help the team to be better in the future. We need experiences like this to learn lessons.
"Two weeks ago, I said that Chelsea could be in 2nd to 6th place in the table. After each match, that position will change. What we need to do now is focus on improving each match" - Enzo Maresca shared after the loss to Man City.
This comment by Enzo Maresca is considered timely because just last month, Chelsea was ranked 2nd on the rankings and was close to Liverpool. However, now they have fallen out of the Top 4. Maresca is wise enough to understand that the race is still very long and the final result is the answer to everything. The 2nd place that the team once had cannot be the safety belt for the team to have a ticket to play in the Champions League at the end of the season.
Although Maresca is quite confident and the reality also shows that Chelsea is only 1 point behind the Top 4. However, that does not hide the decline that is starting to appear.
Man City are a great team but have been too damaged this season. Against The Citizens, The Blues only played well in the first few minutes, especially around the time Khusanov made a mistake. Then, when the home team increased the tempo, Chelsea were completely passive and suffered for almost the entire second half.
It wasn't just against Man City that such a performance happened, Chelsea have lost control like this in recent weeks. After Khusanov's gift, Chelsea missed a great chance when Nicolas Jackson was too unlucky to receive Cole Palmer's cross. Just under 1 minute later, The Blues' net almost shook when Phil Foden's thunderous shot hit the post.
After that, the trio of Bernardo Silva - Mateo Kovacic - Ilkay Gundogan began to regain control and overwhelmed Chelsea's midfield. Maresca himself admitted after the match that Kovacic and Gundogan's ability to move and choose positions was excellent. If it was Man City at their peak, it would be understandable that Chelsea would be pressured, but when the opponent was injured after losing to PSG, Chelsea still could not cause trouble.
Enzo Maresca is considered to be a more attacking player than his predecessor Mauricio Pochettino. However, it was Poch who led Chelsea to a 4-4 draw with Man City last season, a match where The Blues played an attacking game against the reigning champions in good form. That is the image Chelsea fans need to see.
The highlight of Chelsea's woes was Robert Sanchez. While the home team still had a chance to equalize, the goalkeeper's silly move extinguished all hope of points for the visitors. After the match, Maresca defended Sanchez as a matter of course. However, the Italian coach needs to make changes soon because Sanchez has proven to be only average. If he continues to use the 27-year-old star, Maresca could pay a heavy price.
