After watching Chelsea win our third consecutive league game in some style, Enzo Maresca praised his players for the way in which they handled a difficult start and expressed his delight at hearing the vocal travelling support getting behind him and his team.
The Blues beat Southampton 5-1 at St Mary’s and, on another night, it could even have been more such was the ease with which we created opportunities.
The Saints were sprightly in the opening quarter-hour, but Maresca explained why we were able to seize the initiative for the remainder of the contest and secure another fine away win.
‘I’m very happy with the five goals we scored,’ said Maresca.
‘I’m not happy with the first 15, 20 minutes where we struggled. We struggled because we prepared the game to play man to man, and we were not pressing man to man in the first 15, 20 minutes.
‘If you don’t go man to man against this team, you struggle to recover the ball. After then, we adjusted that and the game was much better. It completely changed.
‘It was a good game from all of them. Sometimes you have to adapt when you play 10 players, you can slow the game and keep the ball, but we created so many chances. We could have scored more, but five goals is enough.’
The Chelsea support in one corner of St Mary’s, a new location for away fans this season, didn’t stop singing all night. Chants for Maresca could be heard regularly, as could the repeated refrain of ‘Chelsea are back’.
Maresca acknowledged their support during the second half and at full-time, and he did so again when asked about it at his post-match press conference.
‘It was a very good feeling \[hearing the chants\] especially because you can see they are happy. It’s our target. We work every day to keep them happy. Tonight it was a very good feeling, especially the one they can see Chelsea is back. This is important.
‘The results help a lot, and calm down the noise around the club. It’s a good feeling to see the fans happy after the last two years when many things happened. You can see now the feeling from them is good.’