"The same thing happened" – Maresca accuses Chelsea of struggling with issue that hurts them every week

Yesterday at 07:30 AM

Chelsea's last couple of months saw a major swing as the Blues' long run of wins transformed into a series of 5 games without a victory.

But had the team really dramatically changed their performance? Or was it just fine margins and a couple of poor injuries sapping us at a tiring time? Certainly we still had good moments in that run, but a few of the problems that have consistently haunted us over recent season returned – poor finishing, shaky goalkeeping, and crucially a lack of confidence and calm when hit with a setback.

Listening to Enzo Maresca speak with quotes picked up by Chelsea's official website, it seems he understands all that and was impressed with his side's reaction yesterday:

"I think in the five games where we didn't win, the performance was always there. The problem has been in the box where we could have been a little more clinical. Tonight it was important that we won the game," the manager said.

Chelsea still struggle with one major problem

But there was still a major issue, one that we saw yesterday and were lucky to get away with in many ways:

"For the first 40 mins, the team were brilliant. We scored a goal, we created chances, and then the same thing happened as in the last four or five games, where when we conceded, we lost a little bit of confidence. In the second half, we again controlled the game, we scored twice, we could have scored more, and we are happy with the three points."

That was basically the big improvement yesterday over the preceding games – we lost control and confidence, but were able to recover it before we conceded and hit a negative spiral.

The only way to get better at that is to keep gaining more experience and learning from these situations. Let's hope last night is a marker that things are on the up.