Former Chelsea player makes excuses for Maresca; and why wonderkid needs a start | OneFootball

Joe Cole was working for TNT Sport on the Arsenal game last night, but they couldn’t resist asking him about his old team Chelsea’s struggles on Friday night.

Cole tried to be positive, and pointed to some of the reasons his old team had looked so toothless in two games against the Seagulls. They managed just 1 shot on target in their FA Cup and Premier League games in the last week combined.

“[Chelsea had Nicolas] Jackson missing, Marc Guiu is a young player, [Christopher] Nkunku got his chance because [Joao] Felix has gone to AC Milan, and he needed to take that chance. If you’re going to be the centre forward, the number 9 for Chelsea, we need you in games like that. And he didn’t do it. Which was disappointing. It’s a really difficult time for Chelsea, again.”

You can see Cole speaking in the clip embedded here:

Chelsea struggle to innovate, on or off the pitch

Enzo Maresca yells on the touchline. (Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

Those injured players were never going to make it easy for Enzo Maresca to earn a win, but looking at Arsenal’s actions in the same situation, one realise that there were alternatives. Mikel Arteta played Mikel Merino as a striker, and also has bene using a host of young academy players in recent games.

Maresca was reluctant to change anything, even after seeing his team struggle so badly in the first edition of this double-header. He’s also been reluctant to use any of the young attacking players at his disposal, although with so many wingers out he was forced into it by the end of Friday’s game.

Tyrique George’s appearance in the final half an hour of that match saw him show more attacking intent and confidence than all the other attackers had shown combined. Surely he’s got to get a start soon if Maresca wants this to continue to appear to be a meritocracy?