Maresca happy with performance, fight, team spirit shown in 1-1 draw against Forest
Today at 02:46 AM
Post-match reaction from the boss
Chelsea's five-match winning streak crashed repeatedly against the walls of Nottingham Forest's defense yesterday, but in an homage to Dutch engineering, those walls held fast with nearly impenetrable resolve.
Forest came in with a clear and simple gameplan: put ten behind the ball at all times, look for counters and hope for a set piece. In turn, Chelsea dominated possession and maintained solid control — until the bonkers final few minutes. Overall, it was a script we've seen play out many times before, usually not in our favor.
But this time, Maresca's budding blue army were able to recover to gain at least a share of the spoils.
"I think first 45 minutes we didn't concede nothing, we controlled the game, created the chances and the performance was very good because you can get frustrated against this kind of team. But, as I said, compared to the Brighton game it's a completely different kind of game so you need to learn how to play.
"I thought first half was top and then second half we concede the goal and become a little bit more up and down. After we score immediately and then again we were in control. [...] Overall I thought the performance was very good and I think we deserved to win the game."
One of the talking points post-match was the flare-up that happened between the teams late on, when Neco Williams hit Marc Cucurella out of bounds — not even in the NFL can you do that! Benches cleared and everyone made a big circle and did all the usual handbags and posturing.
Given Chelsea's disciplinary record last season and the narrative of a young, immature team creating its very own problems persisting, one might have expected to find Maresca reacting with the usual bits of contrition, but instead the head coach talked up those moments as ones showing a bit of team spirit.
"This kind of things can happen. Then in terms of emotion or these kind of things the team is fighting altogether and I don't think some of them lose their heads. I think they all of them were in the game and I was happy with that. [...] I like the team the way they are fighting. I like the way they are becoming a team in these kinds of things. [...] I like the spirit of our team. I don't see any problem."
-Enzo Maresca; source: Football.London
Go, fight ... almost win!
