Enzo Maresca Thread

[Vesper 29,475]

Chelsea’s top Premier League scorer in 2025 is left-back Marc Cucurella. That is a problem

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6259252/2025/04/07/chelseas-top-scorer-in-the-premier-league-in-2025-is-left-back-marc-cucurella/

How long will the inquest into Chelsea’s latest Premier League slip-up against Brentford run before someone asks the big question: why did Enzo Maresca wait until the 77th minute to bring on his top Premier League goalscorer of 2025?

No, not Cole Palmer, introduced for Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall just shy of the hour mark.

Not Pedro Neto, brought on for Noni Madueke at the same time.

Definitely not Nicolas Jackson, who made only his second Premier League appearance after a two-month injury layoff when he replaced Christopher Nkunku at half-time.

The correct answer is, of course, Marc Cucurella. The roving left-back represented Maresca’s last attacking roll of the dice in the 0-0 draw when he came on for Reece James with 13 minutes left.

Given that Chelsea have played 12 Premier League games in 2025, the Spaniard’s three goals since the turn of the year should be nowhere near enough to distinguish him as the most consistent attacking match-winner in the squad over that span, yet they are.

Palmer has found the net only twice in 2025, the latest on January 14. His struggles have understandably garnered the most headlines but Chelsea’s attacking problems are far bigger.

Madueke also has two Premier League goals to his name since the beginning of January, but none since tapping into an empty net in the third minute against Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium on January 25 (largely because of a significant injury absence).

Pedro Neto and Enzo Fernandez are the only two other players in Maresca’s squad who have scored more than once since the turn of the year.

Jackson’s failure to pass that threshold makes sense in light of his injury absence, though his scoring drought already stood at eight Premier League matches before his hamstring gave way in early February.

 

Jackson failed to score against Brentford (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

The inability of Jadon Sancho (goalless since December 😎 and Christopher Nkunku (one league goal in 2025) to clear such a low bar is harder to justify, but easy to explain when observing them on the pitch.

Sancho, in fairness, has at least responded to the repeated urging of his team-mates and Maresca by trying to shoot more often in recent weeks.

The problem is that on the relatively rare occasions when he manages to overcome his lack of explosive speed or overwhelming strength to create an advantage against his defender with skill, his attempts at goal lack conviction. At the Gtech Stadium, his only effort in the second half trickled well wide of Mark Flekken’s post.

What more is there to say about Nkunku? Maresca’s post-match insistence that the Frenchman’s struggles are not down to a lack of effort felt as feeble and unconvincing as the sum of his contribution over 45 listless first-half minutes.

Everyone knows that Nkunku is not a natural No 9, but his apparent limitations in recent months go well beyond that. Can he press? Can he make runs? Can he protect the ball from any level of physical pressure? Can he combine with others?

Against Brentford, as for much of this season, the answer to all of the above was no, and the Frenchman’s limitations — whether due to a lack of effort or ability — caused visible frustration among his team-mates.

Nkunku has always been an unusual footballer: not a true striker, winger or No 10, but a hybrid connector who does his best work somewhere in between.

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Last season’s pre-season injury that deprived him of the opportunity to become the hub of Mauricio Pochettino’s team will always be a sliding-doors moment, but it could not be clearer that his best position is away from Chelsea — and that in the meantime, Maresca cannot count on him to be a helpful force.

That would be a significant problem for Chelsea even if their other attackers were producing in line with expectations, but as things stand Nkunku’s frequent disappearing acts form only part of a broader crisis of production across Maresca’s front line.

Goals from Fernandez or Cucurella arriving late in the opposition box cannot save them forever, and did not against Brentford. Maresca’s response after the Brentford draw was to point out the fact that Chelsea are behind only Liverpool in expected goals (xG) this season.

Their average xG of 1.7 in their 12 league matches in 2025 is only a marginal dip on their average of 1.9 xG per game this season, and against Brentford they had the most shot attempts (21) without scoring in a Premier League away game since December 2017 against Everton at Goodison Park.

There is plenty of reason to believe that Chelsea’s numbers will rebound in a healthier direction now that Jackson and Madueke are fit enough to play around Palmer, and to make sure that Nkunku plays less.

 

Maresca and Palmer after their draw with Brentford (Eddie Keogh/Getty Images)

But they have only seven Premier League matches remaining, the final four of which are against Liverpool, Newcastle, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest. That is a small and perilous enough sample size to fear a continuation of this collective attacking slump.

If it continues, there will be plenty among the match-going Chelsea support who will lay the blame directly at the feet of Maresca and his insistence on patient, possession-focused football. Many of them could be heard chanting, “Attack, attack, attack” in the first half against Brentford and greeting a Madueke shot in the 34th minute with a sarcastic chorus of “We’ve had a shot”.

Even more consequentially, Chelsea’s chronic lack of attacking punch in recent weeks belies the reality that their margin for error in the race for Champions League qualification is exhausted. Only time will tell if being held to a goalless draw by Brentford will be regarded as a disastrous point, but there is no world in which it is an encouraging one.

Maresca will not care in the slightest who gets the goals in his team’s final seven Premier League games, as long as they arrive with frequency and volume. But if Cucurella is still Chelsea’s top league goalscorer of 2025 come the end of May, the club is highly unlikely to be returning to Europe’s elite club competition next season.

[Vesper 29,475]

Christopher Nkunku’s Chelsea ‘struggles’ not due to lack of effort – Enzo Maresca

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6259050/2025/04/06/christopher-nkunku-Chelsea/

Enzo Maresca has insisted that Christopher Nkunku’s struggles at Chelsea are not due to a lack of effort.

Maresca selected Nkunku to play as a No 9 in Sunday’s goalless draw at Brentford, but the Frenchman failed to impact the game before being substituted for Nicolas Jackson at half-time.

Nkunku is widely expect to depart Chelsea at the end of the season in search of more regular game time, but the club’s head coach does not believe his struggles are down to a lack of effort.

“I don’t think it’s a lack of effort because at the end I can see Christo every day and he’s working well,” Maresca said after the match.

“Sometimes probably he wants to give more during a game and he struggles a little bit, but for sure I don’t think it’s a lack of effort.”

Maresca also said it was unfair Premier League required Chelsea to play Tottenham Hotspur on Thursday and Brentford three days later due to a lack of recovery time.

Chelsea lined up against Brentford with Cole Palmer, Jackson, Marc Cucurella and Levi Colwill all on bench after all four played big minutes in a hard-fought 1-0 victory over Spurs at Stamford Bridge on Thursday, 24 hours after Brentford lost 2-1 against Newcastle United.

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Asked if he felt the scheduling was unfair, Maresca replied: “I think so, especially at this stage of the season, but we tried to adapt.

“We said many times that when it’s a transition game, it’s demanding, physically demanding. So Tottenham was more transition than compared to (this game), for instance. But at this stage I think 24 hours make the difference (in terms of recovery).

“The reason why first half we started in one way and the second half we finished in the other way is because of that. And probably if we decided to start the first half in the way we finish, probably after half an hour, 45 minutes, the team was not physically good enough to finish the game. So we tried to find a solution.”

[OneMoSalah 8,841]

Nkunku’s struggled because 1) he hadn’t been used often enough/in a run of games sooner and 2) because Maresca shunts him out left wing or plays him as an actual number 9.

The guys made a career out of scoring goals playing off a number 9 or as a split striker. Disappointing it hasn’t worked out and likelihood he will leave because the ability and sort of numbers he can deliver are very good and will appeal to teams. I know Werner had good numbers in Germany but Nkunku is certainly a different case to Timo in terms of ability, technical skill and footballing intelligence. Positionally Maresca has no idea on where to use him but surely it is not rocket science, you don’t see Pep playing Haaland/Slot playing Salah/Howe playing Isak/Glasner playing Mateta/Frank playing Mbuemo out of position? If the guys a 10 or a second striker use him as one. Don’t try and be too clever or certainly don’t use him as a left winger where the fullback on the same side inverts a lot meaning he is often the one on the touchline providing the width as opposed to getting in and around the box.

Granted his season has been start stop and when he did get a regular run (eventually), he really struggled but he had scored 13 goals in all competitions before he made more than 2 consecutive starts for us - which was the beginning of February. Why did it take so long to give him consecutive starts? Jackson on the other hand, missed countless big moments costing us m points and nothing happened. Not dropped. Not rested. Then injured and you’re forced to play a guy you wouldn’t trust to start more than twice in a row after scoring 13 goals prior to then when the other striker who has previous for this, couldn’t finish his dinner at times. It is little wonder Nkunku looks so bad he’s probably thrown the towel in or confidence will be shot. Mismanaged 100%. 

Edited Wednesday at 06:14 by OneMoSalah

[milka 3,377]

With Roman this loser  would have been fired months ago , he wouldn't even be considered as an option for a coach by Abramovich, and we would have had a top coach like Tuchel and probably since 2022 we would have won the Premier League .
 

[Special Juan 27,629]

I hate this bald cunt but I'm starting to hate the club and what it's become more and more

[Mhsc 998]

Feel like Boehly and Egbhali need to have a proper dust up, agree that its not working and find a resolution with either them both selling up or 1 of them selling to the other and a plan to move forward with a new vision.

Something major has to change or it will just be groundhog day, changing manager is not enough.

[Mário César 1,075]

he is not better than poch 

I said several times during this season

besides, we finished last season with 63 points and this season will be close to that 

tbh, I rather give poch de opportunity to grow and improve the team one more season than appoint maresca

[Mhsc 998]

13 minutes ago, Mário César said:

he is not better than poch 

I said several times during this season

besides, we finished last season with 63 points and this season will be close to that 

tbh, I rather give poch de opportunity to grow and improve the team one more season than appoint maresca

Imo he is far better than Poch, who is likely to blame for many injury problems we are still coping with to this day, after flogging the players to death in training (and reaping no benefits from it, but rather just injuring them all the time and leaving them exhausted for the games). He also finished the season with 63 goals conceded, I think the most we have conceded since 1990 or something. And that was with a far better GK available.

Maresca has made plenty of mistakes but its almost impossible to do as badly as Poch who was a total fraud, tactically outdone by every opponent and even the incompetent owners and sporting directors could see he had to go asap and that he was an obvious and embarrassing mistake of a hire.

[Laylabelle 9,464]

Thing is the players during that were so slow and whatever. No urgency!!! We don't have the squad we had before that seem like they care

[Mário César 1,075]

2 minutes ago, Mhsc said:

Imo he is far better than Poch, who is likely to blame for many injury problems we are still coping with to this day, after flogging the players to death in training (and reaping no benefits from it, but rather just injuring them all the time and leaving them exhausted for the games). He also finished the season with 63 goals conceded, I think the most we have conceded since 1990 or something. And that was with a far better GK available.

Maresca has made plenty of mistakes but its almost impossible to do as badly as Poch who was a total fraud, tactically outdone by every opponent and even the incompetent owners and sporting directors could see he had to go asap and that he was an obvious and embarrassing mistake of a hire.

maresca has a strong start of the season because he took the monementum of the last season

[Mhsc 998]

7 minutes ago, Mário César said:

maresca has a strong start of the season because he took the monementum of the last season

Maresca changed virtually everything about the way we play and with a number of different players.

I do not think Poch should get any credit whatsoever for results under Maresca, who had to immediately fix a number of catastrophic and somewhat hilarious flaws that had been drilled into the players (for example, playing a recklessly high line and not dropping off when the opponent had the ball under no pressure, was something he prioritised and worked hard to fix from day 1).

They are a mile apart in terms of tactical understanding and Maresca is the far more ruthless of the two, pushing out players like Sterling and Chilwell who had been Poch's darlings but were clearly completely washed up. 

No doubt better managers than Maresca available but Poch is not one of them. Whether any of them will come here is another question, given the serious structural flaws in the club, its a bit of a poison chalice.

[Special Juan 27,629]

He like the players, fucking rubbish

[Mário César 1,075]

2 hours ago, Mhsc said:

Maresca changed virtually everything about the way we play and with a number of different players.

I do not think Poch should get any credit whatsoever for results under Maresca, who had to immediately fix a number of catastrophic and somewhat hilarious flaws that had been drilled into the players (for example, playing a recklessly high line and not dropping off when the opponent had the ball under no pressure, was something he prioritised and worked hard to fix from day 1).

They are a mile apart in terms of tactical understanding and Maresca is the far more ruthless of the two, pushing out players like Sterling and Chilwell who had been Poch's darlings but were clearly completely washed up. 

No doubt better managers than Maresca available but Poch is not one of them. Whether any of them will come here is another question, given the serious structural flaws in the club, its a bit of a poison chalice.

so why we dont see any result progress?

[DDA 9,770]

This fucking imbecile said, “it is normal to drop the point” after drawing with Ipswich.

Get the fuck out of here. 
 

 

[Bluepower777 18]

See everywhere frantic calls for thr coaching staff to be sacked, I think they were too quick to select our coach, a high profile manager is needed for a high profile team like Chelsea.  On the subject half the squad are simply mot Chelsea standards.  People responsible for bringing in this lot are obviously lacking in football wisdom. Sad state of affairs. Very expensive to get rid off too.

[milka 3,377]

This is not Chelsea no progression only regression and downgrade with 1.5 billion spend

clownlake ruined perfectly functioning club ready to win year after year  and turned him into a laughing stock get out  all clowns of the club

[Mário César 1,075]

we will become a midtable club 

[Ledg 643]

I don’t see how can he be defended anymore.

This poor form (both performances and results) have been going for 4 months now. If it was a month of bad results, I would say it’s reactionary but he looks like he doesn’t know how to fix it.

What’s the guarantee this won’t continue into next season - a squad overhaul again (?), because he clearly wants to play one way and it’s seen he can’t get this particular group of players to do it.