More than an hour after full time, Enzo Maresca has finally arrived to speak with the press at Stamford Bridge.
We can imagine why – either he was giving his team a dressing down, or perhaps he himself was being given one. We know that Behdad Eghbali and the sporting directors went straight to the dressing room at full time.
Red card changed the game says Chelsea boss
In the end, Maresca said the only things he could really say about another defeat as the bad results start to stack up:
“It’s a tough one because we were in control of the game. We didn’t concede anything [at the start]. We had so many shots in the first half, we had 70% possession, everything was fine,” Maresca said.
“But because of our mistake, the red card, the plan completely changed. We played two games: the first-half and then after the red card.”
It certainly was a massive pivot point – the Blues went from controlling the game to being dominated by Brighton. They still had moments before the equaliser where they could have made it 2-0 as the Seagulls pushed forward. But ultimately it was their failure to capitalise on 73% possession in the first half which cost them.
Maresca exaggerates Chelsea’s first half dominance
We would slightly dispute that Chelsea were quite as much of an attacking menace as Maresca makes out. We certainly had the better of the first half, but weren’t testing Brighton nearly enough. We can’t think of Bart Verbruggen having to make a string of saves, that’s for sure.
Of course the red changes everything – but if we had a better attacking setup perhaps we would have had a two goal cushion and been better able to hold on.
