No Chelsea player can hold their head high after the performance against Leeds.
After the game, Enzo Maresca appeared to be experiencing the same emotions as those who had to suffer through that 90 minutes at Elland Road.
Chelsea fans are angry with Maresca for certain personnel decisions made on Wednesday, and by the sounds of it, he’s not too happy with himself either.
But he does stand by his decision to take off Estevao Willian at the break, for a number of reasons.
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Enzo Maresca with a rare critique of Estevao Willian
No Chelsea player performed great against Leeds, but what we have come to expect from Estevao in recent weeks — rightly or no — made this display feel like a drastic drop.
The 18-year-old was clearly frustrated as he kicked out at Anton Stach to earn himself a caution, and Maresca reckons the hostile environment got the better of him.
Football London report Maresca’s post-match words: “I think the feeling with Estevao was a little bit, ‘welcome to Premier League, welcome to Leeds’. The impact for him must have been probably a big, big impact for him.
“The reason why we changed him is because he was already on a yellow card. Sometimes when you are 18, you struggle to manage emotion, so it was better to change him and to avoid any red card.”
Estevao Willian for Chelsea vs Leeds
Photo by Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA/Getty Images
Maresca will have been well aware of the discipline narrative that keeps reinforcing itself at Chelsea. Luckily, no one was given their marching orders on this occasion.
The ‘Welcome to the Premier League’ line is interesting.
Estevao hasn’t looked one bit fazed about the step up from Brazil, but this tricky away fixture is as close as you’ll get to a cold, rainy night in Stoke these days — and he did falter.
Maresca hopes this is a one-off for Chelsea
It’s easy to hone in on the individual errors in games like this, but the bottom line is that it was a concerning team performance.
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Maresca is praying that this is just a blip for the Blues, as he remarks: “I hope that we had a bad night, because it’s a game that you struggle to find something that you can take from the game.
“I think, again, they were on the ball, off the ball, towards second ball, they were much better than us in all the aspects.”
Hype around this side was at a season-high coming into this tie with many floating the idea of a Premier League title charge after some staggering performances. Daniel Farke said himself that Chelsea can challenge for the title.
Unfortunately, it’s shades of last season with this Leeds result — a game Chelsea were expected to win.
There isn’t much time to sit in the loss, though, as Maresca concludes: “There is nothing that we can take from this game. The only thing we can do is try to understand the mistake we made, try to reset, because again, in 48 hours, we have another game.”