On July 20th 2023 Chelsea faced Wrexham in their first pre-season game in the USA and won that game 5-0.
Almost exactly a year later it was a case of deja vu as The Blues faced Wrexham again in the USA but this time around, they were actually lucky not to be on the wrong side of defeat. Enzo Maresca was very close to losing his very first game in charge if it wasn’t for a great late save from Lucas Bergstrom, and a tidy finish from Lesley Ugochukwu.
Wrexham are a division higher than they were this time last year and they had another year of experience with the same manager and basically the same squad. I knew they were going to cause us problems, I knew they would be well-organised, and I knew they would be sitting off in a deep block allowing Chelsea to keep the ball in deep areas. This can be tough to break down whatever the level is you’re facing.
What I also know is that we should never over react to pre-season friendly games, especially the very first game.
Of course, we all want to see positives and progress as the games go on and again of course, it’s great if we can get some wins on the board too for momentum. All of that is absolutely important. But so is the fact that we shouldn’t over react to anything. There was always going to be fatigue, always going to be sloppy passes, always going to be rustiness, and always going to be time needed for Maresca to implement his system.
There was many positives to take away from this game despite conceding two and almost losing the game.
After Chelsea scored the first goal they dominated and used the ball well. After starting off very slow and cautious in possession, Chelsea soon started moving it quicker with one-touch passing and being progressive with movements. This was our best spell of the game from then until half time.
As always, the wholesale changes at half time then put us back to square one and also with less quality on the pitch. Wrexham began to come out the blocks a bit more and offered…
Source link : https://www.talkchelsea.net/opinions/opinion-positives-to-take-from-chelseas-first-pre-season-game/
Author : Simon Phillips
Publish date : 2024-07-25 11:29:23
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