64 in 3 games – “odd” thing Chelsea are doing could be a transfer hint from Maresca claims pundit | OneFootball

The London is Blue podcast today made a great point when looking back at Chelsea’s last 3 games as a whole.

They noted that the Blues have put in 64 crosses in those games, despite not really having anyone in the box ready to turn those crosses into chances:

“We’re trying to whizz the ball across the box and we don’t have either the wingers or the striker who has just the MO to take a ball down, or to knock it into the back of the net from an aerial position,” Dan Dormer pointed out.

“If you had one more attacker in there who’s 6’2, 6’3… you could at least have contested for it. But this is not how this team has been built. I don’t know if that Maresca indicated to the sporting directors that he would really love a striker of that profile between now and the end of the window… but from a structural standpoint it feels a little odd.”

Chelsea not playing to their strengths with key central players down

Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall in conversation with Enzo Maresca. (Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

This is a great point, and it was really notable last night. We’re not sure it’s a deliberate move from Enzo Maresca though, and certainly isn’t meant to encourage a bid for a striker.

It’s more a case that, with no Enzo Fernandez in the team, with Cole Palmer playing on one leg and no Levi Colwill to filter passes into midfield, Chelsea lacked any ability to create centrally.

Instead they had more success from Tosin or Trevoh Chalobah pinging long diagonals out to the wing in space. The problem was then that their best option was to cross it in to… nobody. It worked well on the second goal where Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall flicked the ball on to Marc Cucurella (who was just about our most consistent player in attacking crosses all game) but apart from that just felt like a waste.