After back-to-back defeats against Brighton in our last two games, part of an ongoing two-month win-drought on our travels, Chelsea adding another away defeat to the ledger may not be that surprising, especially against a quality (if slightly out-of-form) side like Aston Villa.
But to our credit, our performance was markedly improved from the tame effort(s) against Brighton — we played with more intensity, more tempo, more endeavor and executed our slightly tweaked gameplan very well for large stretches of the game.
Unfortunately, these new improvements were undone by some old and familiar failings: shocking misses, defensive frailties, lack of second half and late-game energy, and the occasional goalkeeping howler.
For head coach Enzo Maresca, all those factors add up to make this the “toughest” defeat to take yet this season. He certainly has a few to pick from in the last two months!
“This is, for me, probably the toughest defeat of the season. The reason why is because the reaction from Brighton was brilliant, the performance was very good and unfortunately, in this moment, it is not enough. That’s why it is a tough one.
“I don’t think we deserved to lose the game, to be honest. In this league, you have to be clinical. The difference most of the time is inside of the box. Unfortunately at 1-0 up we had some chances and didn’t score, at 1-1, we had some chances and didn’t score. In the end, anything can happen and unfortunately we lost the game.”
“[Today] our team was there. You can recognise: off the ball, aggressive, on the ball, tried to play and create chances. Without a No.9 in the last two games, we struggled to create chances. Today, we tried Pedro during the week, it worked very good, attacking in behind and creating chances, scored a goal but it is a moment where we probably are a bit unlucky. We need a win and try to go again.”
The moment that would end up defining the game was of course Filip Jörgensen letting the winning goal slip through his arms in the final minute of regulation, but as Maresca points out, we certainly had our chances to score a second (or third) goal and that could’ve easily changed the outcome of the match. Jörgensen, who made a couple excellent saves earlier in the game, probably makes that save nine times out of ten — just as Cole Palmer probably converts his 1-v-1 late on with Emiliano Martínez just as often. But Palmer’s in a funk, and our fortunes in general appear to be in no hurry of turning around either.
“That chance [from Palmer] would’ve changed completely the game. For me, it is quite similar to Filip — this is a moment where we are unfortunately in a bad run in terms of results but we are still there. Today’s performance compared to the performance at Brighton was much, much, much better.
“[Now] this is a moment where we need to support each other, be strong and continue to work hard. I have a feeling in this moment that we need to win a game to go again. But now, the good thing in two or three days we have one more game at home and hopefully we can finally, with our fans in our stadium, try to get the three points and from there, start again and try to go again.”
Next up are the worst team in the league, by some ways, at home.
Surely we can do it.