On July twentieth 2023 Chelsea confronted Wrexham of their first pre-season sport within the USA and gained that sport 5-0.
Nearly precisely a yr 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 fallacious facet of defeat. Enzo Maresca was very near shedding his very first sport in cost if it wasn’t for an important late save from Lucas Bergstrom, and a tidy end from Lesley Ugochukwu.
Wrexham are a division greater than they had been this time final yr and so they had one other yr of expertise with the identical supervisor and principally the identical squad. I knew they had been going to trigger us issues, I knew they’d be well-organised, and I knew they’d 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 degree 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 wish to see positives and progress because the video games go on and once more after all, it’s nice if we are able to get some wins on the board too for momentum. All of that’s completely essential. However so is the truth that we shouldn’t over react to something. There was at all times going to be fatigue, at all times going to be sloppy passes, at all times going to be rustiness, and at all times 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 nearly shedding the sport.
After Chelsea scored the primary purpose they dominated and used the ball effectively. After beginning off very sluggish and cautious in possession, Chelsea quickly began transferring 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 at all times, the wholesale modifications at half time then put us again to sq. one and in addition with much less high quality on the pitch. Wrexham started to come back out the blocks a bit extra and provided extra of a menace. They bought their targets from battling and being good and exhibiting high quality within the remaining 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, and so they additionally had a 91% passing accuracy in comparison with Wrexham’s 73%. However after all, none of that issues except you could have the top product to get the scoreline optimistic, which is at all times an important stat in soccer.
We’ve to do not forget that now we have many key gamers to nonetheless come again in as effectively, so we are going to see extra enhancements as we go on. In the long run, we did effectively to get the draw right here, think about the meltdown if we misplaced!?
It was a great little run round to stretch the legs and begin to put in place how they wish to play for the remainder of the season.
There was negatives in addition to positives, and I’m positive that Maresca can have loads to remove and work on consequently.
“I’m very glad concerning the efficiency usually,” Maresca stated after the sport. “We began simply two weeks in the past, it’s essential that us because the employees can begin to see the id of the workforce. 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 throughout the squad? Both method, he doesn’t seem absolutely content material with what he has seen.
We transfer on to our subsequent sport now in opposition to Celtic on Saturday evening at 9pm UK time with some positives to take and a pair good particular person performances because the rust continues to fall off.
