Maresca not blaming Club World Cup for Chelsea stutter | OneFootball

Enzo Maresca does believe the FIFA Club World Cup and a shorter pre-season campaign was to blame for Chelsea’s goalless draw with Crystal Palace in their Premier League opener.

Chelsea opened the campaign with a stalemate against their London rivals on Sunday. The Blues failed to break down Palace, as new signings Joao Pedro and Jamie Gittens failed to fire in attack.

Maresca’s side were also spared after Eberechi Eze scored a fantastic free-kick for Palace, only for VAR to disallow the effort for Marc Guehi’s infringement of the Chelsea wall.

Chelsea mustered just three shots on target but Maresca feels his team deserved the win. He said he was confident Chelsea would improve and refused to blame their unusual pre-season preparations.

“We always try to win the game. Unfortunately, we didn’t win but overall we deserved [to],” he told the club’s official website.

“We created enough chances in the first half and the second half. Apart from the free-kick, we didn’t concede any [clear-cut] chances.

“But at the same time, we know how tough they are, how well organised they are, and that is why in the last two finals they have beaten Liverpool and Manchester City.”

Asked whether Chelsea’s Club World Cup-impacted pre-season impacted their performance, Maresca added:” I don’t think so, because until the end we competed and we tried to win the game. We had some chances at the end with Estevao and Andrey Santos, so that showed that we competed overall quite well.

“For sure, they played seven or eight games and we played two games last weekend where we shared the minutes, so for sure this was the first real game today but for sure slowly slowly we are going to be better.”

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