This Enzo Maresca plan backfired totally – let's hope he learns from it

01/02/2025 11:00 AM

Chelsea's last 3 results couldn't have been better designed to show team that had been doing well losing steam all of a sudden.

They were the equivalent of a broad smile draining from someone's face: an away draw 0-0 against a tough and determined Everton team? Disappointing but not a disaster. Losing 2-1 against spirited Fulham from a winning position? Pretty poor. Losing 2-0 against 19th place Ipswich without putting up much of a fight? Well, that is a disaster.

After motoring through the winter so far with win after win, suddenly goals that were coming easily aren't going in again, and the opposition has smelled blood.

It's not time to panic, but 3 games in a row is already more than a one off, and as we've seen with Manchester City this season, negative momentum can be even more powerful a force than the positive version which we saw Enzo Maresca's team capitalising on through October and November.

Enzo Maresca's rotation strategy doesn't pay off

There is an extent to which we can put these bad results down to luck – we were getting a bit lucky to rack up so many wins before, and that luck has now changed to leave us a little unlucky to get these worse results. But without question there are things that manager Maresca could have done better.

In Monday's game against Ipswich he changed the majority of the attack – that wouldn't have been necessary had he rotated more against Fulham and Everton. A tired team were then replaced by a front 4 without much Premier League practice together. It would have worked better to spread the rotation out across all 3 games, in hindsight. In fact, forget hindsight – we warned it was a risk a week ago.

Maresca's Leicester had a similar wobble last season – let's hope he learned from that experience. Saturday's game against Crystal Palace will be an interesting case study.