Enzo Maresca praises hard-working Christopher Nkunku – but Pedro Neto disrespected again | OneFootball

Christopher Nkunku keeps getting chances in the Chelsea first team, against all odds.

He was poor again today, and was given a sympathy penalty which he inevitably missed.

Asked about him after the game, manager Enzo Maresca defended the Frenchman once again:

“Probably in this moment is lack of confidence and the reason why is because he’s missing goal or penalty like tonight but the only way to deal with that is to work hard every day because when you work hard for sure the reward is important, the problem is when you stop to work and the good thing about Christoph is that he’s working well every day.”

It’s good to hear he’s working well in training, because he doesn’t really seem to be working well on the pitch. He looks consistently disinterested and often looks like he’s just running out the clock until we move him on in the summer.

The only reason Maresca possibly has to pick him is to build his value for the summer – and we can’t see him doing that if he’s just moping around and missing penalties.

Curious Pedro Neto usage leaves us in the dark

Pedro Neto’s controversial celebration.

We’re utterly mystified by how Pedro Neto has been used in the last week. The Portuguese proved he was a better option than Nkunku leading the line in Nicolas Jackson’s absence. He played against Spurs last week, and when he was then rested at the weekend we assumed he’d be back in the team tonight, but he wasn’t. Nkunku got two starts in a row, despite doing nothing, and Neto got 30 minutes over both games combined.

In the end we ran out comfortable winners so it didn’t matter too much. But if you’re resting Jackson and Neto so they’re fresh to face Ipswich, why give Cole Palmer or Marc Cucurella minutes? Perhaps there’s some logic here we’re missing.