Chelsea 1-3 Brighton
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Chelsea’s poor start to the new season continued on Saturday, when the Stamford Bridge side lost 3-1 to Brighton in front of their own fans in the Premier League. The result was not only the first time that Chelsea have lost by two or more goals after leading at half time since 2011, but also now means that Enzo Maresca’s side have won just three of their first eight games of the season in all competitions.
As the Chelsea manager went to great lengths to point out, a red card to defender Trevoh Chalobah eight minutes into the second half is what ultimately led to Brighton turning the game back in their favour. “I think for everyone in the first half, we were playing good. We dominated them,” said Maresca. “We scored a good goal but in the second half, after 10 minutes, we conceded a red card. After that, we knew it could be difficult.” However, fans may not be as forgiving of their team as the Italian tactician.
Following a similar performance against Manchester United one week prior, when Chelsea lost goalkeeper Robert Sánchez to a red card five minutes into the match and went on to lose the game, and a resounding 3-1 loss to Bayern Munich in the Champions League, there’s certainly a growing sense that Maresca is losing his grip on this team and its ability to win matches. And, to no great surprise, his record at Stamford Bridge is also beginning to look rather worrying.
Breaking down Maresca’s Chelsea record
Across all competitions, Maresca still enjoys a solid record of 1.99 points per game, which is notably higher than Mauricio Pochettino’s (1.78) and Graham Potter’s (1.42). However, it’s also still behind Thomas Tuchel (2.08), Maurizio Sarri (2.08) and Antonio Conte (2.12). And that distinction becomes even more apparent when we narrow in on the Premier League records of each of these managers.
Although Chelsea have been the fourth best club in the English top-flight since Maresca joined the club, his record in the division stands at just 1.75 points per game. Again, that may be better than what Pochettino or Potter achieved at Stamford Bridge, but as we can see in the graph above, it’s considerably fewer points per match than Sarri, Tuchel or Conte. So in a sense, Maresca is certainly an improvement on his immediate predecessors, but is someway off the club’s more successful managers of the recent past.
Which perhaps explains the 45-year-old’s current predicament. Chelsea do seem to have stabilised in the league under Maresca and winning the Conference League as well as beating Paris Saint-Germain in the Club World Cup is certainly no easy task. But with the fourth most valuable squad in the league at his disposal, fans of the club are certainly within their right to question whether their manager should be doing more to ensure another top four finish and whether this team are on track to compete with the likes of Arsenal, Manchester City and Liverpool in the years to come.