Enzo Maresca devoted his postgame assessment to a single, recurring theme: inconsistency. Chelsea arrived on the back of a midweek, record-shattering 5\u20131 Champions League win over Ajax, a result that extended a run to four successive victories. That momentum did not survive the weekend as Sunderland first equalised from a long throw through Wilson Isidor and then snatched victory in the 93rd minute when Chemsdine Talbi struck his first goal for the club.<\/p>\n
Maresca singled out the team\u2019s attacking shortcomings. He said “a lack of creativity.” He expanded on the broader issue after the match. “If you want to be there, you need consistency,” Maresca sighed postgame. “Winning four in a row and then today\u2019s [result], it shows that.” He described the gap between peaks and troughs visually and bluntly: “If we can have that level [Maresca lifted his hand towards the ceiling] and this level [dropped the same palm towards the floor], probably it\u2019s better to have something in between, to be always in the same way.”<\/p>\n
The squad\u2019s age profile and recruitment approach were offered as context for those fluctuations. Midweek accolades were tied to age-related records, and the article notes that a very youthful core can be prone to variable performances.<\/p>\n
The decisive goal itself involved two of Chelsea\u2019s more senior outfield figures. Trevoh Chalobah, 26, chased Brian Brobbey back into Chelsea\u2019s half late on and was joined by 28-year-old Tosin Adarabioyo, the oldest player in Maresca\u2019s squad. While Tosin jockeyed Brobbey, Chalobah held his position, allowing Brobbey time to lay the ball off for Talbi, who had the space to place the finish into the bottom corner. Maresca was frank about the defensive lapse. “That can be an easy situation,” Maresca moaned. “We were two vs. one, the striker is facing his own goal. It\u2019s an easy situation to defend. In that case we have to do better.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maresca blamed inconsistency and a lack of creativity after Chelsea conceded a 93rd-minute goal. x2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4048,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,172,689],"tags":[1047,1089,1019],"class_list":["post-4049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-epl","category-sunderland","tag-champions-league","tag-chelsea-struggles","tag-creative-players"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}