Maresca on tactical change he made to try and get crucial goal – Jackson misses cost them | OneFootball

Chelsea knew they were going to face a determined, deep block from Everton today.

The Toffees were at home, where they’ve got a great defensive record, and with Sean Dyche in charge against a free-scoring Chelsea, their priority was always going to be to slow down the game and make it as stodgy as possible.

They did a great job of that – the first half was dreadful, with neither team able to get on the front foot and create chances.

As time went by, it became clear that changes were needed to unlock Everton – the players who had done well for us in recent games just weren’t doing it. It was really interesting to hear Enzo Maresca’s thoughts on what he had done to try and win his team the game in the last half an hour:

“I said, we knew already it was a tough game in terms of creating chances. If you see them in the last game against Arsenal, but in general, you always struggle to create chances against them,” Maresca explained.

“For sure, we could attack better but there was not space for Cole [Palmer]. In the last half an hour, we tried to move Enzo [Fernandez] as an attacking midfielder, with Malo [Gusto] next to Moi [Caicedo] to change something.”

Maresca left rueing missed first half chances

Enzo Maresca and Jadon Sancho at full time against Everton. (Photo by Lewis Storey/Getty Images)

In the end, the best chances Chelsea had were actually those they had early on:

“But overall, in this type of game, knowing you are not going to create too many chances, you have to be clinical. In the first-half, we had the Nico [Jackson] one-on-one with the ‘keeper, the post from Nico, we had another two or three chances inside the box. If you are able to be clinical there and score, then the game is probably different but until that moment, you are going to struggle.”