Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca has disclosed that he called an emergency team meeting just moments before their match against Sunderland. The gaffer had meticulously analysed the Black Cats in the run-up to the Stamford Bridge showdown, scrutinising each of their nine league and cup games.
However, his plans were thrown into disarray when Regis Le Bris handed in his team sheet. Despite Sunderland consistently using a back four in their previous matches, they adopted a more defensive stance against Chelsea, fielding five defenders to guard Robin Roefs’ goal.
Upon receiving the team news at 1.45pm, Maresca, who was in his coaches’ office – which doubles as a debriefing room with Chelsea executives after home games – immediately convened a team meeting. Here, he outlined his revised strategy and issued new instructions.
They had spent the week gearing up for a game against two full-backs and centre-halves each. However, it ultimately proved futile.
Chelsea took an early lead in the match, with Alejandro Garnacho scoring just four minutes in. But Wilson Isidor levelled the score before half-time, as Sunderland adopted a ‘park the bus’ strategy, making them impenetrable.
Just when it looked like the match would end in a draw, Chemsdine Talbi netted a surprise winner for the visitors in the third minute of stoppage time, ensuring Sunderland returned to Wearside with all three points.
Maresca expressed his frustration at the team’s game plan and said: “The thing that we need to improve and we need to learn, and it’s something that I’m saying to the players every day, is now that teams, probably because of what we achieved last season, teams have changed against us.
“Sunderland, nine games in the Premier League, they never played with a back five from the start. Never. They played nine games, I watched all the nine games from Sunderland before our game.
“Never. They finished with a back five, they were winning 1-0, so to defend the last 10 minutes, they had a back five. But from the start, never.
“So we prepared a Sunderland game against a back four, thinking that probably they will be a back five. So before the game, in the changing room, before the players go out for a warm-up, I need to tell the players, ‘Guys, all the Sunderland preparation, do like this, tac-tac-tac-tac, and put in the rubbish.’
“That’s why it’s so difficult. The plan for today, now, is this. In ten minutes, we need to change the plan. So it’s different when we know that team, they are back five, and we prepare with back five.”
The Daily Mail claim that Maresca has given his analysts a new assignment following the match – to review last season’s defeats to teams who adopted a similar strategy, in order to find ways for Chelsea to more effectively dismantle them in future matches.
Maresca also revealed how Ange Postecoglou deployed a similar system against Chelsea when Nottingham Forest welcomed the Blues to the City Ground earlier in the campaign.
He continued: “Four weeks ago, I was in London for the LMA award.
“I was with Ange [Postecoglou], before he took the job with Forest. We were speaking, and I said, ‘Ange, I’ve never seen your team play back five, apart from the last 10 minutes of the Europa League final against United’.
“He started to laugh, and he said, ‘I hate to play back five, but because it was the last 10 minutes, and we need to win the title, I said, ‘OK, I don’t care, we play back five’. We played Forest, it was a back five.
“And I prepared the game against a back four. So before the warm-up, before the play-out, guys, all the plan, rubbish, back five. This is difficult for the players. It’s not when you know that you play against a team, that they always play a back five.
“OK, we prepare all week, or two, three days, for how we can win the game. And we know how to win the game. The problem is when you face a team, that they are back four, arrive here, back five, sit back. It’s more complicated. This is the only difference.”