Maresca rues Chelsea's sudden lack of clinical finishing

01/04/2025 10:52 PM

Hello darkness, my old friend

Chelsea began 2025 the exact same way we ended 2024, by dropping points in eminently winnable games, generally against teams near the bottom of the table. It is now just two points from twelve, with two goals scored, against teams currently ranked 9th, 15th, 16th, and 18th. Turns out just because the calendar has flipped over to a new year, some frustratingly familiar concerns we have had with this team haven't just suddenly gone away.

We may have controlled proceedings to a large degree, but as has been a trend in the last few weeks, our levels dropped significantly in the second half. We may have generally executed our gameplan with our customary aptitude, but critical mistakes in exposed positions gifted favorable opportunities to the opposition. We may have created enough chances to score, but we wasted most of them. In fact, we finished the game with just one shot on target, which was Cole Palmer's goal. You don't really need advanced analytics to see the problem with getting 1 shot on target from 15.

The latter was the part Enzo Maresca rued the most. A second goal would've created the margin of error that seems to be absolutely necessary for us to win a game these days. We don't do clean sheets and certainly not 1-0s (just one such win all season).

"We probably did enough to win the game today. Between the first-half and the second-half, we probably created enough chances to win the game. But in football, you need to be clinical otherwise the game is always open, especially in this stadium; any transition, any corner boosts the energy for them. Unfortunately at the end, we concede but overall, we did enough today to win the game."

"The performance today was very good on and off the ball. [But] if I had to decide the reason why we didn't win the game; we need to be clinical when you have the chance to kill the game. Because if it's 2-0, the game is probably finished but if you continue to be open, open, open, you are likely going to concede some transitions and some corners and then you can concede."

"I always say the important thing is to create chances. If you create chances, then you are doing the right things. Then you need to take those chances. I think if you think about Ipswich game, we had so many chances there. Sometimes it is football.

"Sometimes you create and score, sometimes you create one chance and you score one and sometimes you create 10 and score two. In this moment, it is like this. What can we do? We could try to be even more intense during the week when we prepare the game even if the intensity and the intention of the players is top. For sure, it is something we need to improve, thinking we are one of the two or three best teams at scoring goals at the moment."

-Enzo Maresca; source: Football.London

Let's hope we can remember how to finish chances again at some point soon.