Chelsea’s draw with Crystal Palace today could be forgiven under normal circumstances – there are no easy games in the Premier League, and you can’t win them all.
But coming on the back of two defeats and a draw, all against teams in mid-table or below, it just wasn’t good enough. We needed a reaction, instead we got the opposite – more of the same problems which have afflicted us for what seems like years now.
Strong start > Score > Miss chances > Sit deeper > Concede > Drop points. It’s the same, time and again. A huge amount of blame from the fans will be aimed at Enzo Maresca today because of the lack of subs (he didn’t make a change until the 81st minute despite the fact his team were quite obviously losing their grip on the game.
He defended himself against criticism of his subs in a recent press conference by saying that he didn’t want to make change for change’s sake – but that’s just nonsense. Replacing an ineffective Pedro Neto or a tiring Jadon Sancho would have a very clear purpose. Not only might changing players spark his team into life, it also slows down the burnout of the first team which is really starting to hurt us now.
With a totally changed B team playing in midweeks all season, we should be now taking advantage of extra freshness in our first XI. Instead, a reluctance to make subs means we look to have tired more than most others – which is preposterous.
Maresca’s sub decisions continue to enrage fans
After Marc Guiu came on in the 81st minute, Noni Madueke joined him in the 85th. Joao Felix and Christopher Nkunku stayed on the bench.
You only have to glance at social media to see what fans think of this. It’s quite incredible how quickly Maresca has eaten up the immense credit he had in the bank at the start of December.
The boy is not a tactician. He is just a coach who is regid for nothing.
Of all the pass games we lost it due to late subs.
Chelsea have good players but now they lack a real coach who can change the texture of the game in the second half. We lost T.T who was a very good coach. These division 2 managers are a problem
Once a manager begins to bring sentiments into his team, things starts to fall apart. Neto has never been better than Madueke in my view.
Dont see the sitting deeper in this. Chelsea one up at the start of the second half, and we are chasing shadows in Palaces half even in there area. When they should be employing a mid block in our own half and countering from there.