Maresca has facts and stats prepared for media to explain Chelsea’s early season struggles | OneFootball

Enzo Maresca is taking his press conference after Chelsea’s 2-0 win over Everton at Stamford Bridge, and the Blues boss was asked about how relieved he was to have Cole Palmer back in the team after the attacker scored his first goal since September in the victory.

Maresca points to Chelsea absences after slow start

A Chelsea generic group celebration. (Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

“With Cole, we are a better team. I really praise the players and the squad because we’ve played 16 Premier League games, five of them without Moises Caicedo, 11 of them without Cole Palmer, almost all of them without Liam Delap,” Maresca said, revealing that he had clearly figured out the figures before the game in order to make this point.

“This squad has been doing fantastic. We have played almost the whole season without our best player. I am so happy for the players. People on the outside can appreciate that.”

He’s right – it’s worth remembering how many games those key trio have missed, and when you combine that with other injuries plus the inability of two other first team starters (Reece James and Wesley Fofana) to play every game, it’s been a more challenging start to the season than many on the outside have recognised.

Hopefully we can improve as the season goes on, with the like of Palmer now back and Caicedo about to return from suspension as we enter the second half of the campaign.

In other news…

In the same presser, Enzo Maresca revealed that he had really been struggling with the last 48 hours, making some surprising claims about how he had been coping with them.

Chelsea’s clean sheet today was the crucial part of their win, and it keeps up an incredible record when they have one particular pair of players on the pitch.