Head coach Enzo Maresca could all but admit there was work to do after Chelsea lost to Celtic on Sunday.
The second game of Chelsea’s pre-season saw the Scottish Premiership champions, Celtic, ship four past them. Only a late Christopher Nkunku penalty prevented a clean shit for the Bhoys.
After the game, Maresca spoke to the club’s in-house media team.
“The result is always important [but] for sure in this moment, we need to analyse the game in general. On the ball the team was ten times better than we were against Wrexham because we can see the amount of chances we had in the first half and the second half.
“Off the ball, for sure, we need to improve things. You can see sometimes we confuse when we need to play short and when we need to play a little bit longer but that is part of the process.
“We are trying so many things and we have not had the chance to try everything because we only started 15 to 20 days ago.
“I think after five minutes, we had already had two or three chances to score a goal and in the second half, until the third goal, our team was very good, again creating chances.
“I think we didn’t concede a shot [in the second half] until the 75th minute and then we conceded the third goal and it became more difficult.
“For me, it is important to realise the difference between us and them in the physical conditioning. You can see they had already played four games in pre-season and they are starting their official season very soon. Whereas for us, we struggled a little bit physically.”
Up next for Chelsea is a game against Liga MX side Club América on Wednesday at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia.
The Blues kick off their Premier League campaign against champions Man City on Sunday, August 18.
Welcome to Stamford Bridge, Mr Maresca!
There are no calm waters on the Chelsea shores right now: not on the inside, and certainly not on the outside. The way the club have gone about doing things over the last two seasons tells everyone at least one thing: the new guys just do not know how to slow down.
Some of the upheaval was inevitable. The other, not so much. All of it, however, makes Chelsea very fun to watch for the neutrals. Even pre-season games right now can not be taken lightly by Maresca, for whom these may very well be cup finals.
There is only a certain distance the fans will go to support Maresca and be realistic about things before they get wrapped up in the chaos of the Bridge and start blaming the coach as the results don’t come.
Tick tock, Mr Maresca.
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