6 speaking factors from Chelsea’s scrappy pre-season draw with Wrexham

Chelsea’s first pre-season pleasant of the Enzo Maresca period was an actual rollercoaster experience.

Christopher Nkunku scored the primary purpose of Maresca’s tenure however wholesale modifications on the break noticed Chelsea collapse fully as Wrexham leveled and finally took the lead 70 minutes in. Solely a late strike from Lesley Ugochukwu spared their blushes.

As is custom with each pre-season pleasant, it is time to overreact and draw pointless conclusions. Listed below are six key speaking factors from the 2-2 draw.

Simply two minutes into this ‘pleasant’, Levi Colwill and James McClean discovered themselves scrapping within the centre of the pitch.

A late problem from the Wrexham winger clearly irritated Colwill, and the pair ended up with palms at one another’s throats, grabbing collars and refusing to let go. Two particular purple playing cards on some other day.

Sick-discipline was a problem with Mauricio Pochettino’s Chelsea. Maresca should guarantee issues do not spiral uncontrolled once more.

Maresca’s model is all about controlling possession in midfield, and Romeo Lavia appeared remarkably snug taking cost of proceedings on his return from such a prolonged battle with damage.

The younger midfielder performed simply 45 minutes and, whereas we should bear in mind this can be a pre-season pleasant in opposition to a League One aspect, followers couldn’t assist however get excited concerning the future with Lavia on this staff.

Issues fell aside after the break, and it is no coincidence that Lavia was not on the pitch when issues began to go incorrect.

Nkunku balled out final pre-season earlier than a nasty knee damage robbed him of just about his complete debut season. The Frenchman will really feel like a brand new signing this 12 months and picked up the place he left off final summer time with one other purpose right here.

He opened the scoring with an instinctive strike shortly after the hour mark, crashing residence after some penalty-box pinball and flashing the goalscoring imaginative and prescient that Chelsea have so typically lacked over the previous few years.

Getting Nkunku purring have to be one in all Maresca’s prime priorities.

Teenage striker Marc Guiu began the sport and undoubtedly caught the attention in his first 45-minute cameo of his Chelsea profession.

Once more, the context of the sport is necessary to recollect, however Guiu’s need to influence the sport was actually spectacular. He charged after each free ball, did all the things he might to trigger issues for Wrexham’s defenders and even earned comparisons to former Blue Diego Costa due to his tenacity.

You solely get to make one first impression, and Guiu didn’t let that likelihood go him by.

Maresca made wholesale modifications at half-time and went for a extra inexperienced aspect, a lot of whom clearly didn’t look as snug in his distinctive tactical setup and those that preceeded them.

Two errors taking part in out from the again allowed Wrexham to take the lead by the seventieth minute, with this iteration of Chelsea’s staff trying extremely uncomfortable in opposition to supposedly inferior opposition.

The perils of Maresca’s high-risk model of play.

Chelsea went sturdy to start out the sport however, with health a very powerful factor, Maresca made ten modifications on the break, with solely Carney Chukwuemeka taking part in the complete 90 minutes. The primary half efficiency was good. The second half, nevertheless…

The staff appeared misplaced at sea, being pulled round at each ends of the sphere and unable to put a finger on their opponents. The midfield pivot misplaced management and there appeared to be no positional understanding wherever.

If these points are going to current themselves, pre-season is the right time. The group are studying a brand new model of play and are inevitably going to want time to get there, but it surely’s clear that some gamers want extra endurance than others.

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