Maresca names Chelsea’s “best player” from last night who has made improvement “normal” | OneFootball

Chelsea’s result last night was a disaster, a pathetic defeat to Leeds. One positive was Pedro Neto, who came on and scored.

He is really racking up his goal contributions now, with 5 goals and 2 assists in 14 appearances in the Premier League this season.

Pedro Neto keeps building on successful first season

Pedro Neto celebrates his goal against Leeds. (Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

He was playing well last season, and established himself as a Maresca favourite, but wasn’t always getting the goals or assists that those performances warranted. This season, especially while Cole Palmer has been out, Neto has stepped up. It was very telling that he was the first attacking options the manager turned to last night when it was clear things weren’t going well.

“Pedro, compared to last season, he is doing many things better,” Maresca said.

“Pedro [Neto], second half, Garna [Alejandro Garnacho], second half, they were our best players.”

“It’s also normal now this season that he is scoring goals and getting assists… Now we need to reset, we need to prepare for Saturday’s game. Saturday will be very similar to last night’s game with the environment, the intensity, and we need to reset and prepare to win the game.”

Well, we don’t expect Bournemouth to be quite as fearsome as Elland Road… but we need to be prepared either way.

In other Leeds news…

Cole Palmer’s appearance in the second half as a sub was one of the few positives from the game last night, and it also means Enzo Maresca can shuffle his pack in attack a little. Two out of form players are at risk.

The Athletic have pointed out that, for all of this season’s positive progress, Chelsea are actually worse off in the two most important categories in the Premier League table compared to a year ago.