The Enzo Maresca excitement had dampened slightly after a couple of poor results in the league, but there’s nothing like the Conference League to provide a tonic to what ails you, and a 4-1 win for Chelsea last night was just that. Maresca spoke to the press afterwards and was pretty clear about how happy he was to see his team doing well.
“It was a very good performance. I think we struggled a little bit at the beginning of the game. And we adjusted; we struggled off the ball with our pressing, I think on the ball we were quite good – and then we made some adjustment and were much better,” the Blues coach explained.
“The most important thing, I always said, no matter how many players we change, you can see the identity of the team. We can do things better. The identity is quite clear, the way we play on the ball and the way we play off the ball.”
Maresca proved correct as team continues to come together
Whether or not you agree that the identity of the team was as clear tonight as Maresca claims, there is no doubt that there is a distinct change in this team to the one we saw a year ago. You can like it or not, the important thing is that the manager is able to get his message across and is clearly forming the team the way he wants. That means forward, progress, and as we all know as football fans, bad results can be forgiven as long as there’s a sense there’s a big picture and a final destination in mind.
Of course we struggled at times – we’re always going to struggle when it’s a seconds string team who are out of practice.