Ex-Liverpool player Steve Nicol was left distinctly unimpressed with some of Enzo Maresca’s comments after Chelsea’s win against Brighton last weekend.
The Blues continued their impressive start to the season with a 4-2 win against the Seagulls at Stamford Bridge with Cole Palmer stealing the show as he scored all four goals.
Whilst Maresca’s men picked up the three points, Robert Sanchez was once again a topic of conversation after me made two poor errors which lead to Brighton’s goals.
Nicol unimpressed with Maresca’s comments after Brighton game
Sanchez is Maresca’s number one even though the majority of Chelsea supporters believe he shouldn’t be and after the game the Italian told reporters the Blues should expect to concede more goals like this because that’s the way they are going to play.
It’s not exactly what supporters would want to hear because at some stage those errors will be the difference between winning and losing a game.
Former Liverpool player Nicol took issue with the comments when asked about them and described them as absolute nonsense.
“I’ll tell you what, that’s garbage. Seriously? I’ve never seen this [Maresca’s post-Brighton comments]. This is the first time I’ve seen it. That’s nonsense, that is absolutely nonsense,” he told ESPN.
“You know what’s happening? It’s one thing every now and again [for] somebody to make an error when you try to play the ball out and it’s actually on to play it out but they make a mess of it, that’s one thing. But to turn around and just say ‘I don’t care; this is what we do’ is nonsense.”
It feels like Sanchez in particular needs to work on his decision making when under pressure at the back because on a number of occasions he’s played a team-mate into trouble which has proven costly.
Chelsea have got their way of playing under Maresca but in certain situations it feels like common sense needs to prevail and it’s ok to just kick the ball long or put it out for a throw in.
There’s all this praise for Chelsea’s League position and results but back in reality, we’ve only played City out of the big teams and lost! Let’s calm down and get a true measure of the progress after the next six league games where we will have come up against the bigger established teams, that will be a more accurate reading of improvement so far.