Half an hour into the friendly between Chelsea and Real Madrid in Charlotte on Sunday, the Blues found themselves two goals down again.
For Chelsea it was a familiar place, looking at the scoreline and finding themselves losing, as defensive errors appeared amid their third defeat in five pre-season games on the summer tour of the United States.
Chelsea have conceded the opening goal of the game in four of their five matches on this tour, losing 2-0 in three of them.
New manager Enzo Maresca has continued the extremely high line that former manager Mauricio Pochettino desperately tried to install last season in what was an ultimately futile attempt to build a long-term project. Maresca has tried to build on the slight progress they showed throughout the campaign, but it is still causing serious problems.
“It’s a problem we’ve been trying to solve since pre-season, from day one,” said Maresca after the defeat to Real Madrid. “One of my first meetings with the players in the squad was about the number of goals we conceded last year with a very high defensive line. It’s something we’re trying to work on.”
Both of Chelsea’s goals came from vertical passes that broke the line, one from Rodrygo and the other from Vinicius Jr, two world-class players with such abilities.
Chelsea, meanwhile, also tore Real Madrid apart on several occasions, but were unable to finish well, which contributed to their disadvantage. Christopher Nkunku, Noni Madueke and Marc Guiu were all very positive in the match and created numerous scoring opportunities, although Raheem Sterling struggled to make his own impact. Maresca was less concerned about that phase of the match.
“Offensively the team is there, because the pieces are there,” Maresca said after the match. “We created chances, the problem was in defence. When I say in defence it’s not just the defensive line, in general it’s all the players.”
Once Chelsea fell behind, they seemed to take defensive instructions a little more emphatically and from there on, limited the La Liga side’s chances. This should be taken with a grain of salt, however, as the final half-hour of the match didn’t show much attacking impetus from either side as both clubs were keen to finish a gruelling pre-season tour without expending any more energy.
Maresca says if the club are to achieve anything significant this season and revive Chelsea as a Premier League contender, they will have to make improvements in defence.
“Any team that wants to do something, win games or compete, has to work well defensively,” Maresca said. “It’s difficult when you concede one or two goals, always coming back. Today, again, in the first five minutes we had two clear chances, but when you concede and are down by one or two, it becomes difficult. Overall, in terms of the things we’re doing and improving, I’m pretty happy.”
Chelsea now return home to England, with one more pre-season game against Inter Milan at Stamford Bridge before opening the Premier League season with a huge clash against Manchester City on August 18.
