Chelsea just suffered a 1-3 defeat to Man City in the Super Sunday match of round 23 of the Premier League. This result pushed them down to 6th place in the rankings with 40 points, 1 point less than the 4th ranked team, Man City. The score gap is not large, but the Blues' recent performance has sounded the alarm 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 whole team better in the coming time. We need such experiences to learn lessons.
Two weeks ago, I shared that Chelsea could be in 2nd to 6th place in the rankings. After each match, that ranking will change. What we need to do now is focus on improving with each match" - Enzo Maresca shared after the loss to Man City.
This commentary by Enzo Maresca is considered timely because just last month, Chelsea was ranked 2nd on the rankings and was closely following Liverpool. However, they have now dropped out of the Top 4. Maresca is smart enough to understand that the race is still a long way off and that the final result is the answer for everyone. The second place they once had could not be a insurance belt for the team to have a ticket to the Champions League at the end of the season.
Although Maresca is quite confident and in fact pointed out that Chelsea is only 1 point behind the Top 4. However, that does not mean that The Blues cannot hide the existing recession.
Man City is a big team but has been hurt too much this season. Against The Citizens, The Blues only played well in the first few minutes, especially around the time Khusanov made a mistake. After that, when the home team pushed up the speed, Chelsea were completely passive and suffered for almost the entire second half.
Not only did he perform like that against Man City, such losses of control have happened to Chelsea in the past few weeks. After being gifted by Khusanov, Chelsea missed a good opportunity when Nicolas Jackson was too unlucky in Cole Palmer's cross. Just nearly 1 minute later, the Blues' net almost shook after 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 the ability to move Kovacic and Gundogan to choose positions was very superior. If Man City were at their peak, Chelsea being pressured was understandable, but when the opponent was in pain after losing to PSG, Chelsea still could not cause difficulties.
Enzo Maresca is considered to have built an attacking style of play that was more eye-catching than his predecessor Mauricio Pochettino. However, it was Poch who held Chelsea to a 4-4 draw with Man City last season, a match in which The Blues played brilliantly in attack against the defending champions in good form. That is the image Chelsea fans need to see.
The highlight of Chelsea's misery is Robert Sanchez. In the context of the home team still having a chance to equalize, this goalkeeper's silly take-off extinguished all hopes of getting points of the away team. After the match, Maresca defended Sanchez as of course. However, the Italian coach needs to make changes soon because Sanchez has proven his ability to be only average. If he continues to use the 27-year-old star, Maresca could pay a heavy price.
