Maresca calls for more ‘clinical’ Chelsea after Everton draw | OneFootball

Enzo Maresca has called on his Chelsea players to be more clinical after wasting chances in their 0-0 draw with Everton.

The draw for the Blues closed the gap to league leaders Liverpool to one point, ending their eight game winning streak in all competitions.

Chelsea had chances to take the lead early on but Nicolas Jackson struck the woodwork and had a one-on-one saved by Jordan Pickford in the first half in extremely difficult conditions at Goodison Park.

Despite another point consolidating their place in the Premier League top four, Maresca says his side needed to be more clinical against a very compact Everton side:

“I said, we knew already it was a tough game in terms of creating chances,” Maresca said. “If you see them in the last game against Arsenal, but in general, you always struggle to create chances against them.

“For sure, we could attack better but there was not space for Cole [Palmer]. In the last half an hour, we tried to move Enzo [Fernandez] as an attacking midfielder, with Malo [Gusto] next to Moi [Caicedo] to change something.

“But overall, in this type of game, knowing you are not going to create too many chances, you have to be clinical. In the first-half, we had the Nico [Jackson] one-on-one with the ‘keeper, the post from Nico, we had another two or three chances inside the box.

“If you are able to be clinical there and score, then the game is probably different but until that moment, you are going to struggle.”