“Sunny day, the pitch was dry…” – Maresca reels off excuses for Chelsea’s poor attacking showing | OneFootball

Enzo Maresca has just taken his post-match press conference after Chelsea played Brentford in a dull 0-0 draw, but as ever the Chelsea coach tried to look on the bright side.

He said he was happy with how his team had played, then reeled off a list of excuses as to why they hadn’t been able to do any better:

“We had a demanding game on Thursday, we had 24 hours less rest than Brentford,” Maresca began.

“Tricky stadium, tricky game, sunny day, the pitch was dry. They tried to kill the tempo of the game. So it was for me a complete game, but overall as I said we did enough to win the game, we shot more than 20 times, and probably the only thing we missed was the goal. But overall happy with the performance.”

He picked a team without his two best attacking players starting the game, remember.

You can see Maresca speaking in the clip embedded here:

Enzo Maresca continues to defend attacking players after poor show

Christopher Nkunku chases a ball against Brentford. (Photo by Eddie Keogh/Getty Images)

After a tepid attacking showing where his team did eventually manage to rack up the 20 shots he mentioned without ever really threatening or looking too dangerous, the coach insisted he was happy with their attacking display.

He admitted he wanted his attackers to score more goals – but still insisted in general that he was happy with the attack in general, making the very valid point that his side are among the top scoring teams in the league.

Maybe next time with a less sunny day and a less dry pitch Jadon Sancho will actually be able to add something to the attack? Unfortunately, with Spring now having arrived, pitches are only going to get drier and days sunnier. We hope he’s got a contingency plan for that.