Positives to take from Chelsea’s first pre-season game – Talk Chelsea

On July twentieth 2023 Chelsea confronted Wrexham of their first pre-season sport within the USA and gained that sport 5-0.

Virtually precisely a 12 months later it was a case of deja vu as The Blues confronted Wrexham once more within the USA however this time round, they had been truly fortunate to not be on the unsuitable facet of defeat. Enzo Maresca was very near dropping his very first sport in cost if it wasn’t for an awesome late save from Lucas Bergstrom, and a tidy end from Lesley Ugochukwu.

Wrexham are a division increased than they had been this time final 12 months they usually had one other 12 months of expertise with the identical supervisor and principally the identical squad. I knew they had been going to trigger us issues, I knew they might be well-organised, and I knew they might be sitting off in a deep block permitting Chelsea to maintain the ball in deep areas. This may be powerful to interrupt down regardless of the stage is you’re dealing with.

What I additionally know is that we should always by no means over react to pre-season pleasant video games, particularly the very first sport.

In fact, all of us need to see positives and progress because the video games go on and once more after all, it’s nice if we will get some wins on the board too for momentum. All of that’s completely vital. However so is the truth that we shouldn’t over react to something. There was all the time going to be fatigue, all the time going to be sloppy passes, all the time going to be rustiness, and all the time going to be time wanted for Maresca to implement his system.

There was many positives to remove from this sport regardless of conceding two and virtually dropping the sport.

After Chelsea scored the primary purpose they dominated and used the ball properly. After beginning off very sluggish and cautious in possession, Chelsea quickly began shifting it faster with one-touch passing and being progressive with actions. This was our greatest spell of the sport from then till half time.

As all the time, the wholesale adjustments at half time then put us again to sq. one and likewise with much less high quality on the pitch. Wrexham started to return out the blocks a bit extra and supplied extra of a risk. They acquired their objectives from battling and being sensible and exhibiting high quality within the last third. Chelsea seemed lackluster by a lot of the second half however nonetheless had first rate spells of possession too.

Chelsea bossed it with 75% possession and had 5 extra makes an attempt on purpose (11) than Wrexham had (6). But Wrexham had been extra scientific and higher with their efforts on purpose, having 1 extra on the right track (4) than Chelsea did (3).

Chelsea made 767 passes in comparison with Wrexham’s 254, they usually additionally had a 91% passing accuracy in comparison with Wrexham’s 73%. However after all, none of that issues except you might have the top product to get the scoreline constructive, which is all the time a very powerful stat in soccer.

We have now to keep in mind that now we have many key gamers to nonetheless come again in as properly, so we are going to see extra enhancements as we go on. Ultimately, we did properly to get the draw right here, think about the meltdown if we misplaced!?

It was a very good little run round to stretch the legs and begin to put in place how they need to play for the remainder of the season.

There was negatives in addition to positives, and I’m positive that Maresca could have rather a lot to remove and work on in consequence.

“I’m very glad concerning the efficiency typically,” Maresca stated after the sport. “We began simply two weeks in the past, it’s vital that us because the workers can begin to see the id of the group. Tonight it was fairly clear.

“For positive we’re going to add extra options.”

By the way, I discovered that remark fairly fascinating. Is he saying they’re on the lookout for options within the switch market or inside the squad? Both method, he doesn’t seem totally content material with what he has seen.

We transfer on to our subsequent sport now towards Celtic on Saturday night time at 9pm UK time with some positives to take and a pair good particular person performances because the rust continues to fall off.