It has been a pretty good first season in charge so far for Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca and we are fully deserving of our place in the top four of the Premier League, but with that said, there is no denying that it has been a pretty poor and frustrating start to the New Year with the results we have picked up.
Successive draws with Crystal Palace and AFC Bournemouth can only be considered as four points dropped by Chelsea in our chase for a return to the Champions League, so Monday evening’s clash with Wolverhampton Wanderers at Stamford Bridge was effectively a must win for the first team group – particularly as we close out the month of January with a trip to the Etihad Stadium to face Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City side.
It was another good performance from us in reality, and with another solid attacking display, improvement at the back after their initial equaliser saw us take all three points in a 3-1 win. Trevoh Chalobah made his Chelsea first team return as well having seen his loan spell at Selhurst Park cut short, and post game the 25 year old certainly took his share of the headlines.
One of the biggest topics of discussion to come out of the match though was naturally the fact that we brought to an end our five game winless run, and even though Maresca was obviously delighted to return to winning ways and again restated that he had been happy with the performances that they players had been putting in, he knew that we had to be more clinical in and around the box, and he felt that the scoreline against Wolves should have actually been higher.
The daft thing being, of course, that we are actually the joint second highest scorers in the league at this stage of the campaign but the simple fact is that is mainly down to our over reliance on Cole Palmer’s scoring ability and no other player is yet into double figures for the year.
That is what is holding us back, we need our strikers to step up on a more consistent basis to help better cover the slip ups at the back that we have been suffering from, and whilst it is good that we are sharing the goals around – Tosin Adarabioyo became our 13th different Premier League goalscorer in the last match – if we are to have the kind of second half to the year that we want, we really need three or four players to get themselves in and around the double figure mark by March latest.
As it stands, lose Palmer, and then Nicolas Jackson and we are in real trouble right now.
But victory and the three points were what was needed, and hopefully with us back on track now it frees up the head space to deal with our reliance issues so we drive consistency further.