“For me…” – Enzo Maresca clear about “toughest defeat of the season” | OneFootball

Enzo Maresca has just been speaking to the press after Chelsea’s defeat to Aston Villa at Villa Park.

It was a game that followed a typical pattern for the Blues, who have dropped an incredible 13 points from winning positions since Boxing Day, incredibly.

Once again they took the lead, looked good, gradually faded and let the opposition back into the game, then ended up losing the game.

Maresca was understandably deflated at full time, and he didn’t even try to put a brave face on it:

“This is probably for me personally the toughest defeat of the season. The reaction from Brighton was brilliant, the performance was really good but the result was not enough. You need to be clinical. The difference is inside of the box.”

His point was that it was such a tough defeat to take precisely because his team had played so well, especially compared to the dreadful double header of defeats against Brighton that preceded it. There certainly were improvements – the team played with much more intensity, Pedro Neto looked dangerous playing through the middle as a striker, and Enzo Fernandez took advantage of his advanced position to score the opener.

Maresca bemoans painful defeat

Enzo Maresca on the touchline. (Photo by: Catherine Ivill – AMA)

Later in the presser, Maresca went even further and pointed to even more positives, which made the defeat so hard to take:

“For me, the toughest defeat of the season, our game was there, off the ball pressing and on the ball, creating great chances. We tried Pedro down the middle and it was very good, we were attacking in behind and creating chances.”

That first half was certainly a big step up from what we saw last week, but playing well and losing isn’t really what we’re aiming for here. The