Chelsea leave Stamford Bridge with 0 points as Sunderland strike late to beat the Blues.
An early goal from Alejandro Garnacho wasn’t enough, as Chelsea once again folded.
It’s hard to pick out one bad performance because quite frankly there isn’t one Chelsea player who can hold their head up and say they can be proud of the way they played.
But the overall blame will and should be put on Enzo Maresca today.
Maresca has been given plenty of praise recently, particularly for this particular aspect of game management.
It’s something he’s improved vastly on, but today was the Maresca of old.
Chelsea’s manager saw the problems in attack and rather than being pro-active with his changes, he seemed to slowly make more and more until he completely overthought the substitutions.
Perfect example, both Pedro Neto and Garnacho are struggling to create anything.
Maresca brings off Garnacho but not Neto. Instead he waited too long to bring off the Portuguese winger and it took its toll on the attacking side of the match.
Tyrique George is a fantastic prospect, but why is he being brought on to play through the middle?
Yes Joao Pedro didn’t have a good game, but there is more of a chance of him creating something at striker than George.
Then comes probably the worst change I’ve seen from Maresca this season.
Josh Acheampong, who is our best defender right now, got taken off for Tosin Adarabioyo, who is notoriously bad at defending in transition.
The most frustrating part about all of this, is that the Italian should know better, so why is he still making these silly mistakes?
When watching Maresca in press conferences and the way he talks in interviews, you can see him as a relaxed figure.
So, it’s very surprising that he constantly panics when it comes to game management.
One step forward, two steps back seems to be the theme of the season for the club and Maresca is at the heart of that.
Chelsea have Wolves away next in the Carabao Cup, and unfortunately the Blues have to try and look to get back on track fast before Spurs next weekend.
