For just the third time all season, spanning four months and 26 games, Chelsea were held without a goal as we drew a blank at Goodison last night.
Of course, a goalless outing at Goodison is hardly new for us: in fact it’s the sixth such occasion on our last eight visits. Historical results don’t necessarily define future performances, but they do inform them. We can very much look at it as a point earned rather than two points dropped, and that’s precisely what Enzo Maresca’s doing.
> “I’m absolutely happy. I just said to the players that I am more happy today than the Brentford game. The reason why is because I was quite worried about today’s game; a tricky game, a tricky stadium, a tricky team.
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> “They are defensively top. They are one of the five best teams in Europe in terms of clean sheets. You struggle to create chances against them and it was not an easy game. You have to deal and you have to learn to play different games; long balls, second balls, set-pieces. Football is not just what we do on the ball, it is also how you defend and deal with that.
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> “Like I said, more happy today than the Brentford game. For sure, prepared the game like always to try and win the game but sometimes there is also another team there that tries to do the same, so we are happy today.”
Everton do in fact lead the Premier League with seven clean sheets, same as Liverpool. And in the top five leagues around Europe, only seven teams have more [right now](https://fbref.com/en/comps/Big5/keepers/squads/Big-5-European-Leagues-Stats). That doesn’t absolve us of failing to score a goal, but it does put into perspective our inability to break them down, to create more than a couple great opportunities, both of which were unfortunately not converted.
> “It was a tough game in terms of creating chances. If you see them in the last game against Arsenal, but in general, you always struggle to create chances against them. For sure, we could attack better but there was not space for Cole. In the last half an hour, we tried to move Enzo as an attacking midfielder, with Malo next to Moi to change something.
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> “But overall, in this type of game, knowing you are not going to create too many chances, you have to be clinical. In the first-half, we had the Nico one-on-one with the ‘keeper, the post from Nico, we had another two or three chances inside the box. If you are able to be clinical there and score, then the game is probably different but until that moment, you are going to struggle.”
There’s the old cliche of title-winning teams finding a way to win games like these. But sometimes, even title-winning teams hit little snags and bumps in the road.
So, the eight-game winning streak is over. But the unbeaten run is now at twelve. Let’s keep going, keep learning, keep improving.