Chelsea are through to the Europa League quarter finals after a win over Copenhagen, and manager Enzo Maresca was delighted with the result and the big picture.
It means 4 wins on the spin for his team, ending their bad spell and setting them up nicely for the final stage of the season, with important injured players now back or close to returning:
“We have kept three clean sheets and four wins. Now we have the last effort on Sunday. Then after the international break Nicolas Jackson and Noni Madueke will be back and it’s the final sprint.”
It’s great to hear the confidence he has that those two vital attacking options will be back then. They really could swing the momentum back in our favour for a strong “final sprint.” But before then we have to navigate a huge clash with Arsenal on Sunday afternoon. That will be a much stronger test than the last 4 games, and one that gives us a better picture of our progress this season.
Maresca makes bold claim that slow first halves were was by design
Maresca also addressed his side’s slow starts in recent games:
“The first and second leg were similar. We planned to analyse [in the first half] and then push in the second half in both matches.”
This is probably being a little generous – there’s no way the plan all along was to play as passively and slowly as the team did in both legs. But it’s probably fair to say they’d been told to keep it tight and not try too many risks while they worked out what the opposition are doing.
If we try that against Arsenal on Sunday however, we might be a goal down before we know what we’re up against.
