Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca urged his players to find consistency if they are to compete for the Premier League title this season. The Blues suffered a surprise 2-1 defeat against Sunderland at Stamford Bridge on Saturday, bringing an end to their four-game winning run and leaving them five points adrift of leaders Arsenal ahead of Sunday's clash with Crystal Palace.
Getty Images SportChelsea's winning run ended in surprise defeat against Sunderland
After securing victories over Benfica, Liverpool, Nottingham Forest and Ajax in all competitions, Chelsea headed into the match against Sunderland in fine fettle. Maresca’s men got off to the perfect start when summer signing Alejandro Garnacho scored his first goal for the club following his move from Manchester United, but they were soon pegged back by Sunderland forward Wilson Isidor’s close-range finish. Winger Chemsdine Talbi then popped up with a 94th-minute winner to stun Chelsea, with Sunderland moving up to second in the table following their last-gasp victory.
AdvertisementBlues hoping title contenders Arsenal and Man City slip up on Sunday
The result leaves Chelsea five points off Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal, who lock horns with Palace at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday. Maresca’s side are also two points behind Pep Guardiola's Manchester City ahead of their trip to Aston Villa on the same day, with Chelsea now hoping results go their way in order to stay in touch with the league’s two main title contenders.
AFPMaresca conceded Chelsea were 'not good enough' against Sunderland
Following Chelsea's defeat against Sunderland, Maresca said in his post-match press conference: "I think we were not good enough in general. We know that in the moment you drop a little, we dropped a little bit, you can lose points against any team in the Premier League. That is so difficult."
When asked if he expected more from his substitutes, Maresca said: "No it’s always difficult for the ones that they go inside. At least they tried. But again, overall we were not good enough.”
Italian also left frustrated as Chelsea fail to maintain consistency
And when speaking to Maresca expressed his frustration at his side's inability to maintain the level they had shown in recent weeks, adding: “If you want to be up there you need the consistency. We won four in a row and yesterday we could have shown that, but because we lost points we didn’t show that.
“If we can have that level and this level, probably it is better to have something in between, to be consistent always in the same way, rather than like this. But I think overall, since we started, we have performed much better compared to Saturday’s game (against Forest).
“Before this game we had exactly the same points as last year after eight games, but we dropped points yesterday. But we are still in October, we need to improve many things, and see where we are in March, April, May.”