Announced as the heir to the seat previously occupied by Mauricio Pochettino, Enzo Maresca joined Chelsea as the head coach amidst mixed reactions in the fan-base.
Coming from the Championship as a league-winning manager for now promoted Leicester City wasn’t enough reasons to convince many fans that the 44-year old Italian was the right man for the job.
However, after over 10 league games, Enzo Maresca looks to have won the hearts of many fans of the Stamford bridge outfit due to the impressive performances from the team so far.
19 points from 11 games with 21 goals scored, 13 conceded and 2 clean sheets so far, Maresca has started brilliantly, to the delight of the Chelsea faithfuls.
Owing to his good start, Maresca enjoys a relatively ‘calm’ atmosphere within the walls of Cobham according to reports.
However, after recent showings against ‘big’ teams, a section of the fan-base is fast becoming impatient due to Maresca’s insistence on playing certain players, birthing talks of ‘favoritism’.
Let’s take a look at some players whose positions in the team should be questioned.
Noni Madueke
Many would agree with me that Maresca has been quite lenient with Noni Madueke since the winger scored a hattrick against Wolves in match day 2.
Since then, Madueke has struggled to justify his inclusion in the team with numerous sub-par showings leading to shouts for him to be dropped for the in form Pedro Neto.
Despite Noni’s inconsistent showings, Maresca has stuck by his decision to play the 22-year old winger, infuriating many who feel the winger hinders the team with his selfish plays.
Again today, Noni produced very little, with poor end product present again.
Noni was subsequently substituted and walked straight down the tunnel.
Robert Sanchez
Spanish goalkeeper Robert Sanchez was announced first choice by Enzo Maresca despite the blues securing the services of Jorgensen from Villarreal for a fee in the region of 17 million pounds.
Since the beginning of the season, Sanchez and the team have only mustered 2 clean sheets while conceding 13 goals from 11 matches.
A fair chunk of the 13 goals conceded could be argued to be Sanchez’s fault (2 against Brighton readily comes to mind) but with Jorgensen not getting any look-in in the premier league so far, a fair few would claim Maresca is holding on too long to Sanchez, a decision that might come back to hunt him.
Beaten at his near post today for failure to react quickly after previously being at fault for the penalty at United for being too slow off his line and against Curtis Jones as well when we played at Anfield, it is difficult to say Sanchez has learnt any lessons so far from his many errors.
These performances are further enhancing shouts for Maresca to drop his number 1 and give Jorgensen a fair chance in goal.
However, it seems that the cries of the fan base are falling on deaf ears.
Romeo Lavia
Taking the place of midfield marquee signing Enzo Fernandez, Romèo Lavia has not done enough to justify starting in place of the Argentine World Cup winner.
Despite the excuse of physicality being the reason the one-time Belgian international starts over the former Benfica man, the past games has proved how crucial Enzo remains to this Chelsea side.
Against Arsenal, Lavia won just 1 of his 4 ground duels, got dispossessed twice and did not attempt any long balls.
Enzo in contrast had the most tackles in the game with (3), attempted 2 long balls with a 50% long pass accuracy, won all 3 of his tackles, 3/5 ground duels and got the assist for the goal, all while only playing 22 minutes of the game.
Enzo has surely done enough to regain his starting spot in the team.
Cole Palmer (in big games)
This one is the most controversial one but it’s a topic that warrants discussing.
Is Palmer too much a liability in the big games?
There is no doubt that Palmer is Chelsea’s best player at the moment but his best moments have often come against ‘lesser’ oppositions and the former City youngster tends to struggle against ‘bigger’ teams.
Considering the array of attacking options in Maresca’s disposal, it wouldn’t be a surprise if some begin to call for Palmer’s exclusion from the ‘big’ games if he doesn’t stamp his authority against a big team soon.
Even if he continues to start in these games, Joao Felix must be a consideration off the bench.
Despite my criticism, it is important to note that we are all judging the players from what we see on the ‘outside’ and the coaches have first hand information on the players as they see them up-close in training and games.
Therefore, they have better judgement of the situation regarding individual players.
