Enzo Maresca has just completed his post-match press conference as the Chelsea head coach reflected on a third straight defeat for his side.
After back-to-back defeats at Brighton, it was Aston Villa’s turn to inflict pain on the Blues. The defeat at Villa Park sees Chelsea miss the chance to climb back into the top four of the Premier League table.
Here is every word head coach Maresca had to say on the disappointing evening in the Midlands:
What did you make of the performance and result?
“This is, for me, probably the toughest defeat of the season. The reason why is because the reaction from Brighton was brilliant, the performance was very good and unfortunately, in this moment, it is not enough. That’s why it is a tough one.
“I don’t think we deserved to lose the game, to be honest. In this league, you have to be clinical. The difference most of the time is inside of the box. Unfortunately at 1-0 up we had some chances and didn’t score, at 1-1, we had some chances and didn’t score. In the end, anything can happen and unfortunately we lost the game.”
How is Trevoh Chalobah?
“We will see. It’s early, we will see tomorrow. He was quite good now, but I don’t know.”
You changed the goalkeeper recently. How do you handle this situation?
“The ‘keeper position is a delicate one because the striker can miss the goal and sometimes it doesn’t look so important but when a ‘keeper makes a mistake, it’s so clear and everyone can see that. This is a moment where we need to support each other, be strong and continue to work hard.
I have a feeling in this moment that we need to win a game to go again. But now, the good thing in two or three days we have one more game at home and hopefully we can finally, with our fans in our stadium, try to get the three points and from there, start again and try to go again.”
Will Filip Jorgensen start against Southampton?
“I don’t know. In this moment, it is not today’s mistake that I am going to change my mind about Filip in this moment. We will see.”
Cole Palmer had a very good chance and after he missed it, he just sat down and watched Villa attack. He looked very angry and frustrated…
“Cole is, I’ve said many times, a top player. He belongs to that category. Because they are top, they want always to try and win games, always try to be the best. He knows in that moment, he is not happy with the chance he missed but on one side, we can be almost happy with his reaction because that means he feels bad about the chance he missed.
“It was around 75 or 80 minutes, that chance would’ve changed completely the game. For me, it is quite similar to Filip – this is a moment where we are unfortunately in a bad run in terms of results but we are still there. Today’s performance compared to the performance at Brighton was much, much, much better. We have 12 games to go – and again, my feeling is that winning one, we go again.”
You said yesterday if you win all of your home games, that might be enough to get into the top four. Does it feel like you are going to need that because of your away form?
“If you remember; the first four or five away games at the start of the season, we won all of them and our best moment was away. It is football. During the season, it can happen that you win games at home and lose away. The most important thing is to judge the performance.
“The reason why I said before that it is the toughest defeat of the season is because today, again, our team was there. You can recognise: off the ball, aggressive, on the ball, tried to play and create chances. Without a No.9 in the last two games, we struggled to create chances. Today, we tried Pedro during the week, it worked very good, attacking in behind and creating chances, scored a goal but it is a moment where we probably are a bit unlucky. We need a win and try to go again.”
