Enzo Maresca facing key Chelsea problem as frustrated fans reject style of play | OneFootball

Blues boss wants more from Stamford Bridge crowd but faces tricky balancing act so early into his reign

Your matchday briefing on Chelsea, featuring team news and expert analysis from Malik Ouzia

Sign up

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

As the Premier League table showed Chelsea climbing back into the top four on Sunday evening, an interesting paradox played out either side of the Stamford Bridge walls.

In the pubs along the Fulham Road, meanwhile, toasts to a vital 1-0 victory in the race for the Champions League came alongside familiar grumblings about the stubborn nature of Maresca’s football.

“The people, they have to understand that this is our way, our style, and this is the way we're going to play,” said Maresca, whose immediate response to Marc Cucurella’s goal was to turn to the crowd behind the home dugout and urge them for more.

Earlier, parts of the home support had jeered when midfielder Enzo Fernandez turned and played backwards, rather than risk a trickier pass in transition.

“The good thing is that Fernandez knows that if he doesn't play back, I will change him,” Maresca added. “If the ‘keeper plays long, I will change him. This is what we have.”

Tactically, Maresca has proven himself a versatile manager, tweaking the shape of his midfield and the use of his full-backs almost every week and, more recently, successfully experimenting with Pedro Neto at centre-forward.

His move to play Cucurella higher up the pitch against Leicester was ultimately a match-winning one, even if the scale of the challenge supposedly posed by Leicester’s surprise move to a back five was somewhat overblown. Were it that transformative, a team with 12 defeats in 13 games would surely have tried it before now.

But within whatever structure, Maresca’s style of play has, indeed, at times looked overly rigid. The focus on control is not a new phenomenon across the Premier League more broadly, but is at Stamford Bridge, on this scale at least. Many Chelsea supporters, it seems, are not fans of ‘Maresca-ball’ and nor are they shy about making it known.

That is a problem for Maresca, who is clearly not thrilled with the lack of positivity in the atmosphere at Stamford Bridge (and is hardly alone there) but knows he cannot afford to go too far in critiquing it while still trying to earn full buy-in from supporters less than a year into his reign.

“We need our fans – I said it on my Instagram two days ago,” he said. “We need them behind the ­players because the spirit they showed today was fantastic. I completely understand when there is a negative feeling but how many chances did we create in the first half?”

He later added: “If you think football is just PlayStation and you win easy? No way. Every game is difficult.”

Style of play is only one factor in Stamford Bridge’s declining atmosphere. There remains dissent in some quarters towards the club’s ownership, evidenced by protests ahead of last month’s win over Southampton. When Leicester fans sang on Sunday that the Bridge is “just a ground full of tourists”, the jibe stung because many frustrated home supporters have the very same concern.

Still, it is Chelsea’s home form that has kept their season afloat in recent months and they have been particularly good at winning the must-win games. Of the Premier League’s bottom nine, five have been beaten at the Bridge already this season, with the other four still to come.

Sunday’s victory over Leicester was Chelsea’s fourth on the spin on their own patch, while last Thursday’s 2-1 win in Copenhagen was their first in almost three months away. Home advantage should be enough to finish the job against the Danish side on Thursday.

Whether it can be maximised for the rest of the domestic season, though, will go a long way to determining whether Maresca’s men hold their place in the top four.