Enzo Maresca reveals main Chelsea concern after 4-1 defeat to Celtic

Enzo Maresca admits Chelsea ‘need to improve many things off the ball’ after they were hammered 4-1 by Celtic in their pre-season friendly on Saturday night.

Brendan Rodgers’ side ran out deserved winners at the at Notre Dame Stadium in Indiana as goals from Matt O’Reily and Kyogo Furuhashi put the Scottish champions in front in the first half.

Luis Palma and Mikey Johnston then struck after the break before Christopher Nkunku scored a late consolation from the penalty spot.

The defeat is Chelsea’s second game of their pre-season campaign after they drew 2-2 with Wrexham earlier this week.

And Maresca concedes that his players are still ‘confused’ both in and out of possession.

‘As we said, the result is always important,’ Maresca said after Chelsea’s defeat.

‘For us, we need to analyse the game in general. I think on the ball, the team were 10 times better than in the game against Wrexham and that is important because we can see the amount of chances we created first-half and second-half.

‘And off the ball, for sure, we can improve things and you can see sometimes we confuse when we need to play short, a little bit longer. It’s part of the process.

‘For sure, we need many things to improve off the ball. One of the things we did bad today was when the ball was not under pressure, to maintain the high-line. When the ball is not under pressure, you need to drop.

‘We still confuse some things on and off the ball. For me, it’s normal in this moment. We are trying to do something new. But for sure, game after game, training after training, we are going to be ready.’

Asked if he has enough time to transmit his ideas to his Chelsea players before the start of the new Premier League season, Maresca said: ‘We are, for sure, going to be ready for that game or at least we are going to improve things for that game.

‘But I am not thinking for the first official game that everything is fine. It’s a little bit difficult.

‘The result is always important but in this moment we need to judge and analyse different things.

‘On the ball we created chances, off the ball we probably conceded too much and that is something we need to improve.’

Maresca was also keen to highlight that Celtic are further ahead than Chelsea in their pre-season schedule with their first Scottish Premiership match of the new season scheduled for next Sunday.

‘What was important to realise was the difference between us and them in terms of physical condition,’ Maresca said.

‘You can see they played already three or four games and they start the season soon. For us, you can see we struggled a bit physically.’

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