On August 18, reigning Premier League champion Manchester City faced Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, and last season, Guardiola was unable to defeat Chelsea. This time, Guardiola’s team has broken that record. Under Mauricio Pochettino, Chelsea drew against Manchester City with a scoreline of 3-3. It was a mouth-watering match.
From the previous results, everyone thought that Chelsea would take some points from this match, but that didn’t happen. Manchester City completely thrashed Chelsea with a scoreline of 2-0.
That is why Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola was impressed with his team’s performance.
What did Manchester City boss Guardiola say?
After the match, Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola spoke about the match. According to the Mirror, he said that last season Manchester City were unable to beat Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, so this is a massive surprise for him. Guardiola always believed that his boys could break this unbeaten streak. So, he was right.
This time, everything was different because Guardiola was against his disciple, Enzo Maresca. So, he was well aware of Chelsea’s strategy.
Post-match analysis
We saw that Enzo Maresca wants to implement possession-based football at Chelsea. Against big teams like Manchester City, you cannot play with a lot of possession because they always have the majority of the ball. The most effective strategy is to depend on counterattacking football.
We have seen so many times that this type of strategy works against Guardiola’s Manchester City. When Chelsea were trying to dominate on the ball, they were making the wrong passes. So, they were losing the ball. If Enzo Maresca wants his team to play fluent football, the players should practice more on passing and perfect positioning.
On the other hand, Manchester City’s midfield was filled with experienced players like Mateo Kovacic, Bernardo Silva, and Kevin De Bruyne. In the second goal, we saw Kovacic get acres of space to run. Chelsea players need to learn pressing.
Last season, Chelsea finished sixth in the English Premier League. Mauricio Pochettino found a standard team out of the scrap.
At the end of the 2023–2024 season, the Blues were performing better than their previous games. They should maintain this performance in order to achieve more success in the upcoming season.
The fans are excited to see Enzo’s Chelsea team because he is the one who brings something out of the box. He has worked under some legendary managers, such as Carlo Ancelotti, Pep Guardiola, Rafael Benitez, and Lippi.
He takes ideas from different managers and combines them all together. On top of that, he mixes in some of his own ideas. These things make Enzo Maresca a great coach.
A new dawn at Chelsea
The Blues are heavily investing in young talents. After some loan spells, when these young, talented players will be more mature and experienced, the club will give them a chance to play for the starting eleven. This is certainly an effective strategy for any club. The same thing has happened to a lot of Chelsea academy players, such as Recce James, Fikayo Tomori, Ruben Loftus Cheek, Tammy Abraham, and Mason Mount.
After the appointment of Enzo Maresca as the new Chelsea head coach, the fans are seeing a massive change in the squad. Todd Boehly has signed new players for almost every position. This action sums up everything about Chelsea’s current situation.
No club wants to lose its talented players. Especially when the player is nurtured at the academy, it is really difficult to lose them on a free transfer because it will affect the future of the club.
Chelsea have already signed a lot of young talents, but now they need to integrate them properly into the squad. The coach has to be more decisive in his decisions because there are a lot of players who want to play for Chelsea. But he has to decide whom to include in the starting eleven and whom to bench.
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