Maresca anger at Chelsea bosses justified as Blues pair provide ammo in laboured Palace draw
âWe said many times that we can create chances and to attack in the right way, if we can build in the right way â Levi [Colwill] was a huge part of our build-up and now he is out,â Enzo Maresca said this week amid a battle with the Chelsea chiefs over the need for a new centre-back, looking genuinely angry as he argued his point.
âWe are trying to find a solution internally, but the club knows exactly what I think and we will see what happens. I think we need a central defender.â
The BlueCo bosses feel no urgent need to dip into the transfer market to find a replacement for Colwill â who will miss most of the season after his ACL injury â with three key factors informing their decision:Â confidence in the depth of the squad, a lack of suitable options available this summer, and full faith in Maresca to improve the talent he already has to call upon.
They consider nine defenders for the three centre-back positions Chelsea operate with while in possession as a perfectly reasonable level of depth â itâs an embarrassment of riches if anything. But Maresca is eager to stress the very specific skillset required of the centre-back playing in the middle of the three.
It was Colwill or Tosin Adarabioyo last season, and with neither available here thanks to a niggle for Tosin, 19-year-old Josh Acheampong was drafted in for just his third Premier League start, with Wesley Fofana (remember him?) tellingly starting on the bench.
Acheampong showed his class in the very first action of note at Stamford Bridge. When faced with the imposing figure of Jean-Philippe Mateta he took it upon himself to dribble past the Palace striker rather than playing a simple ball sideways or backwards, as if to prove himself capable of being a serviceable stand-in for Colwill. Later in the first half he timed a slide tackle to perfection before showing his speed to nick the ball ahead of Mateta and win a free-kick.
This was far from a game to damage his reputation; in fact, the Blues bosses may cite it as evidence of the lack of need to open the chequebook to strengthen in that position this summer. But given the sluggish nature of Chelseaâs football here, specifically their inability to progress through the lines from the back, Maresca will insist this game justifies his push for a new defender who can play pinpoint passes through the opposition lines into the feet of the Chelsea midfielders or attackers in front of him.
Itâs a bit of a case of âyou donât know what youâve got till itâs goneâ with Colwill, whose improvement across last season under Maresca was arguably greater than any other Chelsea player. The regularity with which he found Cole Palmer and others is taken for granted until you see a game like this one, in which Palmer in particular was starved of possession between the lines where he can do the damage and break opposition teams open. His frustration was palpable.
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Itâs just over a month since they taught the European champions a lesson in the Club World Cup final, and one significant difference between that slick display â the best weâve seen from Marescaâs Chelsea â and this laboured performance, is the absence of Colwill. The other was the return of the real Robert Sanchez.
Chelsea were granted a reprieve in the first half when Eberechi Ezeâs free-kick was ruled out thanks to a little-known rule which states that any player not in the wall must be at least one metre away from it, with Sanchez thankful the first of what we suspect will be many goals heâs at fault for this season if Chelsea continue to insist on him as their No.1 didnât arrive on the opening day. It didnât quite go through him, but any Premier League-winning goalkeeper would have kept it out without issue.
Sanchez was named goalkeeper of the tournament at the Club World Cup and was genuinely brilliant in the final, producing some brilliant saves to deny Paris Saint-Germain while also delivering the ball from the back with the sort of accuracy weâve always been promised but almost never seen for Chelsea. His distribution was awful again here.
Maresca will be well aware of the absurdity in asking for more footballers after their ÂŁ250m spend this summer means the BlueCo owners now have four of the top ten transfer window outlays ever despite only taking charge of the club three years ago. But that doesnât make him any less right.
Itâs not clear whether heâs asked for a new goalkeeper or not despite that early window interest in Mike Maignan, but this game will have given him further ammo to request one if he hasnât, while also acting as a prime example as to why Colwillâs injury will be the second of two reasons why this current Chelsea squad wonât win the Premier League title.
