Have Chelsea FC Improved From Last Season?

So, what did I miss? At the midway point, I think Chelsea are roughly where I expected them to be, though in pre-season I was concerned that Maresca was going to be out the door within the first 7 or 8 games.

To pull on that thread, over the course of the season it’s been noticeable that he has binned off that ludicrous brand of football where the ball needed to be recycled between the CBs and deepest midfielder and has now reverted to an end to end game to take advantage of the qualities this squad possesses.

To my mind, that’s good management. He’s still getting his principles across, with the insistence on the fullback inverting into midfield, which I have very little time for as a default tactic. When it works, it’s great – see Aston Villa home, Spurs away. But I would question whether in the long term the ends justify the means.

Too often in this barren run over Christmas, we have suffered with Gusto or Cucurella showing up in the number 10 position and all attacks breaking down. On a game to game basis, Maresca seems to set the team up nicely and we start well before falling apart. I think that’s down to a combination of a lack of in-game adjustments, but also a big lack of fitness throughout the squad – something I was very vocal about in pre-season.

I’m also disappointed that there has been no attempt to try and play Nkunku more regularly in the league, and it’s clear that he has all but given up, judging by his performances. He was always going to be a casualty of the egos of the Senior Directors (SDs), but why he hasn’t been tried off the left makes absolutely no sense to me. I suspect it is because to have him coming inside, you would need a full back to provide width, and Chilwell has been banished. It would be funny if it wasn’t so damaging. I think Maresca is a good, albeit green, coach who is trying to juggle putting out a team to win each week with doing what the SDs hired him to do. It might just be an impossible job.

When he was appointed, I was very sceptical. From reports he was third choice, to the utter collapse Leicester City went through in the second half of last season, through to the reports that he impressed the SDs by telling them what they wanted to hear, I was concerned. Nothing has changed in that regard.

I strongly disliked the way he went along with the SD’s wishes regarding the squad last summer, particularly the frankly disrespectful statements regarding Gallagher (don’t worry I’m not here to moan about that) and Chalobah’s ‘suitability’ to ‘his football’. But also the way he would speak out of both sides of his mouth. We’ve two excellent examples of this, where he said in a pre-season press conference that Sterling was an important player for him, only to turn around 3 weeks later and say ‘he wasn’t his sort of winger’. Also re Chalobah, from essentially ‘he’s not as good as Disasi or Tosin’ to ‘I never wanted Chalobah to leave, but PSR meant he had to’. This one makes even less sense – we didn’t even sell Chalobah and how does that justify the absolutely disgusting treatment of a club stalwart? Absolute rubbish.

For me, the jury is still out, I’m not sure whether we are really improved on last season – but I think the squad has been degraded since then. The SDs have shown their hand regarding their priorities, and Maresca has a very difficult job, but he knew exactly what he was signing up for, so I don’t feel overly sympathetic. Overall I’d give him a 6/10 and I think it’s likely he will be replaced in the summer.

I’m sure a lot of people will disagree, so let’s hear it!

Written by RBD January 24 2025 20:37:19