“The big difference” – Enzo Maresca blames one part of Chelsea for disappointing result | OneFootball

Enzo Maresca had to be on the defensive in his press conference today where he was asked a barrage of questions about his team’s disappointing result against Qarabag in the Champions League.

The team went ahead and still contrived to be 2-1 down by the end of the first half, thanks in large part to some sloppy defending. Jorrel Hato and to a lesser extent Tosin Adarabioyo got some flak for their efforts at the back.

Maresca backs his defenders under fire

Jorrel Hato heads the ball against Ajax. (Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

“No,” the manager replied when asked directly if the errors were being caused by his team’s youth and inexperience.

Instead he had a different explanation:

“I think I said before, the big difference today for me was inside the box. The goal we conceded, they are silly goals for me. In their box, for the amount of times that we arrived, we have not been clinical enough. So this is the big difference for me.”

It’s interesting that he blames the attack over the defence. The attack had given the team the lead, it was two big errors that handed Qarabag the advantage.

Asked more specifically if he would criticise Jorrel Hato, the manager also demurred:

“I think Jorrel, like the team, started very well. We were winning the game, we were in control. Then we started to make some mistakes that we need to improve and we need to avoid and for sure in the future we’re going to avoid that.”

In other news…

Tosin got good marks on the stats site in this game despite a poor showing – we had a look at why that might be, here.

Chelsea equalised when sub Alejandro Garnacho burst through and scored, but they couldn’t get the crucial third goal to earn them three points. The Blues had taken the lead in this game through Estevao Willian – although their subsequent bad defending meant that didn’t last long.