Maresca: The winning goal is easy to defend; Caicedo/Enzo/Pedro are still injured

Hupu, October 26th: Chelsea head coach Maresca attended the post-match press conference after losing 1-2 to Sunderland.

What is your opinion on the team going from taking the lead to being equalized and finally being defeated?

I think overall our performance was not good enough. In the Premier League, if you don't perform well enough, the consequences can be serious.

When you can't win, it's important not to lose. The second goal was not a converted counter-attack but a long pass and we defended poorly.

The first goal was a throw-in because they had six, seven, eight players in the penalty area. This is tricky. We didn't perform well enough.

Who do you think should be responsible for conceding the winning goal?

It was probably an easy (defensive) situation because we were two on one and the forwards had their backs to goal.

It may be easy to defend in this situation, but in this case, we have to do better.

This season Chelsea has lost eight points after taking the lead at home, and they all came after taking the lead. What do you think?

When something doesn't go well, we always look for the reason. We always try to analyze it game by game. We need to do better.

Why can't Chelsea create more chances when facing a 5-3-2/5-4-1 defense?

Our performance is not good enough and we lack creativity. We probably didn’t create too many chances other than [Ganacho’s goal in the first half].

We need players to perform at 100%. Even with the 1-0 lead, we conceded some two-point goals, and against this team, we need to win those two-point goals.

Why did Chelsea do so well when they played against Liverpool, but ended up playing like they couldn't play against Sunderland?

Of course, if you want to get to the level we aspire to, you need to be consistent; four consecutive wins will prove that.

But today we did not show this when we lost points and possession of the ball.

If we have this level (playing Liverpool) and that level (playing Sunderland), then maybe Chelsea need a middle ground. But I think overall, from the start of the season, we've performed much better than today's game.

Did you know that Chelsea attempted a total of 29 crosses today and only 4 were successful?

When we get to certain areas (don't know what he's referring to), we cross because we expect four or five players in the box. The quality of crosses today was not very good, but we scored a lot of goals through crosses.

Why did Pedro change his position and still fall into a goal drought?

I think Pedro hasn't been training every day recently because he's dealing with injuries.

Caicedo is the same, Enzo is the same. We have four or five players who are having some issues and not being able to train every day. They fight hard and play hard. Joao struggled a little bit today but it was the same for all the players today so it wasn't just Joao.