Enzo Maresca has only been in the Chelsea job a few months, but he is already aware of the new “normal” in which the club exists these days.
The Blues find themselves 11th in the Premier League table with once win from their opening three games following a draw with Crystal Palace on Sunday.
There is no cause for alarm bells at this juncture, it is still early days in the new manager’s reign. His side hardly disgraced themselves in a 2-0 defeat to Man City, absolutely demolished Wolves, and were the better side for the most part at the weekend.
More points would be nice, of course, but the Italian believes the early signs are positive. “We completely deserved to win the game with the amount of chances we had. Overall the performance was good. The direction is the correct one,” Maresca told BBC Match of the Day.
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He added: “Once they scored the game became up and down and when the game is up and down and especially against Palace, they are more dangerous than us. We had chances to win the game late on, we didn’t win and it is a shame but the performance was good.”
Chelsea are thus far performing more like a coherent unit than they did for much of last season, despite the club’s incessant need to spend hundreds of millions on bloating the squad with new signings. They created more than enough to beat Palace, generating 2.7xG from 13 shots while limiting their opponent to just 0.49xG from nine attempts on goal.
The end result may have been a different one had Will Hughes received a “clear second yellow card” for barging into Cole Palmer in the second half.
It’s the type of game that the Chelsea of old would have seen out to victory regardless. You have to go back to 2017 to find the last time they didn’t beat Palace. In 31 Premier League meetings they’ve suffered just four defeats to their London rival.
But this isn’t the Chelsea of old, something Maresca made a point of stating after the game at Stamford Bridge.
“Probably one thing that has to be clear: Chelsea three years ago won the Champions League but now it is not that kind of Chelsea so now sometimes if you don’t win it is normal.”
The club’s fans won’t be happy to hear it, but it doesn’t make it any less true.
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