Enzo Maresca has just taken his press conference after Chelsea’s defeat to Liverpool at Anfield, and the manager had to answer some moderately tough questions about his team’s defensive record after another game in which they twice let go of a good foothold in the game by conceding a soft goal.
“We conceded two goals. The first is a penalty, it can happen. And the second goal, in the way we conceded the second goal, we have already avoided this season five or six goals because of the line,” Maresca said.
“To come here in this stadium against this team and to think you’re not going to concede chances, or momentum, it’s almost impossible because of the environment, the team, for many reasons.”
Well there’s some merit to that – but the penalty came as a result of Liverpool racing through the middle in transition, all part of the poor defensive record. The second goal saw Curtis Jones break the offside line with ease, just at the moment where Chelsea most needed to stay steady.
Maresca was pushed further, and admitted his team “need to work on many things” and “can do many, many things better” as they now slid to 2 clean sheets in 8 games.
But after all that, he insisted “the defensive line is getting better.”
Defensive record poor – but Maresca deserves time and credit
We don’t want to be too harsh – the team has improved in many ways, and it can’t be expected to improve universally, instantly. But we’d like to hear a little more frankness from the boss in accepting that there is still a problem with the team defensively, either in holding the line or in pressuring the ball carrier to protect it. After a two week break to work on these things, we’d hoped for some improvement.
