20 G/A in 42 starts: Chelsea’s wingers out in the cold thanks to Maresca’s system | OneFootball

Enzo Maresca has changed his wide options around all season, and there’s been more flux there than in most other positions.

Jadon Sancho, Noni Madueke and Pedro Neto have all had their time in the team, and they’ve all had important contributions and games where they’ve made the difference. But the stats don’t lie – looking at their season in summary, none of them are doing enough in terms of creating or scoring goals.

Sancho has 2 goals and 4 assists in 13 starts, Madueke 7 goals and 3 assists in 18 starts, and Neto 2 goals and 2 assists in 11 starts.

All in all that’s 20 goal contributions in 42 combined starts.

Liverpool lead the way with ruthless attack

Liverpool and Chelsea flags. (Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images)

Table topping Liverpool, by comparison, have 55 from 55 combined starts from Mo Salah, Cody Gakpo and Luis Diaz, their main attacking trident. It’s not a perfect comparison because of the fact that Nicolas Jackson plays up front and the Reds use a different formation, but the fact they’ve got more than double still illustrates the point well enough.

To show the point even more, their second string – Darwin Nunez and Diogo Jota, have 6 G/A and 7 G/A from 7 starts each. So even their backups are producing more in their rotation appearances than Sancho and Neto have managed all year.

Even Madueke’s impressive goal return is boosted heavily by one (admittedly impressive) day out against Wolves where he bagged 3.

In large part this is down to the system we play. It was very obvious against West Ham on Monday night that the wingers were being told to always stay wide, removing them from the danger zone in return for creating space for others.

Neto did get a goal in the end, but even that move started with him crossing from the right wing.

All this would be worthwhile if the wingers were sacrificing themselves to supply a goal machine number 9 – but Jackson hasn’t scored since December.