Chelsea slipped to a 4-1 defeat at the hands of Celtic on Saturday night as their winless pre-season tour of the United States continued, but new boss Enzo Maresca is remaining focused on the positives.
Despite the heavy nature of the scoreline against the Blues, Maresca identified reasons for optimism.
Speaking after the match, he said: “For us, we need to analyse the game in general. I think on the ball, the team were 10 times better than in the game against Wrexham and that is important because we can see the amount of chances we created first-half and second-half.”
Maresca was referring to Chelsea’s opening pre-season fixture, a 2-2 draw against the League One side in which Lesley Ugochukwu scored a late equaliser.
The Blues boss did not avoid the obvious negatives of a rather one-sided match though.
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He said: “And off the ball, for sure, we can improve things and you can see sometimes we confuse when we need to play short, a little bit longer. It’s part of the process.”
Against Celtic, goalkeeper Robert Sanchez consistently opted for long balls out from the back, rather than short passes and considered build-up.
Maresca explained: “Yeah because they were marking us man-to-man; the idea was to try and find some solution in behind but it is something we prepared on the tactical board and didn’t try in the training session. The reason why is because we are trying so many things and we don’t have enough time to try everything. We started just 15 or 20 days ago.”
There was a continued insistence on upside from the Chelsea manager, he said: “When we started the game, after five minutes, we already had two or three chances. And then in the second-half, until the third goal, the team was very good and created chances. We didn’t concede any shots until the 75th minute and then conceded the goal and it was more difficult.”
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Of course, Chelsea were already two goals down at the break.
Maresca also made the point that Celtic are further into their pre-season than the Blues, with the Scottish Premier League due to get underway next weekend.
He said: “What was important to realise was the difference between us and them in terms of physical condition. You can see they played already three or four games and they start the season soon. For us, you can see we struggled a bit physically.”
Again, Maresca was not unwilling to admit that his team remain a work in progress.
He said: “For sure, we need many things to improve off the ball. One of the things we did bad today was when the ball was not under pressure, to maintain the high-line. When the ball is not under pressure, you need to drop. We still confuse some things on and off the ball. For me, it’s normal in this moment. We are trying to do something new. But for sure, game after game, training after training, we are going to be ready.”
The Italian remains confident that he will be able to successfully inculcate his ideas before the season begins.
He said: “We are, for sure, going to be ready for that game or at least we are going to improve things for that game. But I am not thinking for the first official game that everything is fine. It’s a little bit difficult. The result is always important but in this moment we need to judge and analyse different things. On the ball we created chances, off the ball we probably conceded too much and that is something we need to improve.”
The Blues’ remaining pre-season fixtures include matches against Club America of Liga MX, Manchester City, and Real Madrid, before a final friendly against Inter Milan back in London seven days before the Premier League season begins. The Blues’ first league fixture sees them host champions Manchester City.
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