Just when it looked like Chelsea were starting to build some positive momentum, we proceeded to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory (or at the very worst, a draw), dropping all three points at home
against upstart newcomers Sunderland. We brought back the script that pleased no one, from last month against Brighton, also at home: failing to make an early lead count, losing it in added-on time.
And it’s not like the visitors did anything out of the ordinary to get this win. They defended deep and compact, they looked to counter, and they took advantage of set pieces. We had no answer to the team packing nearly all eleven of their players into their own box at times. We gave up the equalizer on a long throw. We conceded the winner on a counter — though as Enzo Maresca pointed out, calling it a counter may be a bit generous considering we had two defenders covering the lead man.
Our approach in that situation was emblematic of the entire match: too slow, too passive, waiting for something to happen rather making something happen. Not good enough.
“I think in general we were not good enough. When you are not good enough in the Premier League, we know that the consequence can be the bad one.
“The second goal we conceded [it was] not a transition because a transition when you are open or it’s 1v1, it’s just one long ball in behind. We are 2v1 with the two central defenders and we didn’t defend properly. […] It can be an easy situation because we are 2v1. The striker is facing his goal, so it’s with the back. It’s an easy situation to defend but probably we tried to manage a little bit because it was 92-93, I don’t know which minute it was. But in that case, for sure, we have to do better.”
“[And we struggled to create chances,] absolutely. Again, I think we were not good enough. Lack of creativity. We didn’t create a lot, apart from the goal probably. And we struggled. Also, I think, you know, we need to perform. We need our players to perform 100%. And even with 1-0, we lost some duels, we lost some second balls. And against this team, you need to win that.”
-Enzo Maresca; source: Football.London
It is of course the head coach who picks the team, though in this case, Maresca essentially picked the lineup that most people would have: Alejandro Garnacho ahead of Estêvão was the one difference, and he scored our only goal! Maresca’s substitution of Josh Acheampong, who was key to covering Sunderland’s counter-attacks was baffling, but that only cost us one point in the end.
As usual, there’s plenty of blame to go around when things don’t go right. One thing is for certain, no one was good enough unfortunately. Such days can happen, but they cannot happen too often.
