Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca has warned fans to be prepared to concede sloppy goals as part of his desire to see the team play their way out of trouble.
The Blues were caught twice trying to play out from defence in their 2-2 draw with Wrexham in pre-season, with Maresca’s youthful second-half side looking particularly uncomfortable in this new system.
After the game, Maresca acknowledged the risk of his preferred style of play and insisted he does not plan to change anything.
“For sure, we are going to concede goals this season playing out from the back,” he confessed. “Hopefully, not too many. It is one of the risks that you have trying to build from behind.
“Absolutely [Chelsea must keep playing out from the back]. I have no doubt. I think you are going to concede in different ways, so you need to decide in which way you need to concede a goal. Sometimes teams that try to build from the back concede goals but I think you are going to score more than you concede.”
Despite a handful of issues, Maresca was largely satisfied with the performance and the team’s willingness to try a new style of play.
“I think the result is always important but I think in this moment, the most important thing is to judge the performance; especially after two weeks,” he explained. “We started, I was happy first half, also second half but we conceded two goals.
“Overall, I’m thinking about players like Wes [Fofana] who played 45 minutes after one year. Like I said, the result for us is always important but in this moment, also we need to judge different things. I’m very happy with the performance.
“In this moment, we tried to build with three and two. First half with [Reece] James inside and second half with Malo [Gusto] inside. It does not matter about the level of the opposition; when they sit back with 11 players behind the ball, it’s always difficult to find space and solutions are not easy.
“We tried first half and second half. For sure, we did many things we can improve but we started just two weeks ago. Tonight was important to start seeing the identity of the team and the identity is there tonight.
“I’m very happy about the performance in general. In this moment, we started just two weeks ago, it’s important that us as the staff and the people can start to see the identity of the team. Tonight it was quite clear.
“For sure we are going to add more solutions. Analysing just the timing we started…
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