Enzo Maresca ready to improve Chelsea issue after revealing tactical surprise vs Premier League opponents | OneFootball

Enzo Maresca has admitted that he had to make tactical changes early in the last couple of Premier League games after being caught by surprise by opponents.

Chelsea's four-game winning run ended last week after the 2-1 home defeat to Sunderland.

That game exposed that Chelsea were not only prone to lapses of concentration defensively, but also their struggle to break down Sunderland's back five.

According to Mareca, this is something he and his staff are trying to remedy.

"When we have some difficulties, we like to analyse," the Italian said in Tuesday's press conference when asked about preparing against back-five defences.

"So these days, we are trying to analyse all last season's games against teams that sit back to see results, to see the game, how we can do better, how we can improve. Because we are always looking to improve.

IMAGO / Pro Sports Images

“And probably, unless a deep switch where we drop points, all the rest (of the) teams, Leicester, Wolves, West Ham, Everton, Brentford, we won both games or we won one and we drew the other one. For sure, it's something that we need to do better.

“The thing that we need to improve and we need to learn, and it's something that I'm saying to the players every day, is now that teams, probably because of what we achieved last season, teams have changed against us.

"Sunderland, in nine games in the Premier League, never played with a back five from the start. Never."

Maresca went on to explain how he was caught by surprise when Sunderland actually started with five at the back last weekend, despite having never done so in any of their previous games.

He therefore had to change his plan after just 10 minutes and tried to communicate it to the players on the pitch.

IMAGO / NurPhoto

It was similar to when Chelsea visited Nottingham Forest a couple of weeks ago, although that time, the visitors fared better and won the game in the end.

"That's why it's so difficult," he added.

"The problem is when you face a team, that they are back four, arrive here, back five, sit back. It's more complicated. This is the only difference."

To be fair, Chelsea are currently topping the league in terms of goals scored, so it makes sense for the opponents to make some adjustments in their defence.

It is very clear that Maresca has plenty of attacking threats at his disposal, and he likes to overload the opposition centre-backs with underlapping fullbacks, so an additional defender in a back-five defence is naturally one of the possible solutions to counter this.

Maresca may have to start preparing for this possibility too, because given the last few games, it is likely that Chelsea will encounter more and more teams that suddenly play a back five against them.