Notre Dame [US], July 28 : Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca analysed their 4-1 thrashing by Celtic in the pre-season game and believes that "physical conditioning" played a role in their heavy defeat.
Chelsea, with almost their full-strength squad, were humbled by Celtic at the Notre Dame Stadium.
Despite starting the game brightly by orchestrating three goal-scoring chances, they soon faded as the game progressed.
Celtic netted twice before the first-half, with Matt O'Riley and Kyogo Furuhashi scoring a goal each.
Chelsea tried to make a comeback in the second half but found themselves trailing by four goals before the 80th minute. Celtic scored twice within three minutes to seal their win. Christopher Nkunku scored a late consolation goal for Chelsea to end the game 4-1.
After the game, Maresca gave his take on the game and said, as quoted from the club's official website, "The result is always important [but] for sure at this moment, we need to analyse the game in general. On the ball, the team was ten times better than we were against Wrexham because we could see the amount of chances we had in the first half and the second half. Off the ball, for sure, we need to improve things. You can see sometimes we confuse when we need to play short and when we need to play a little bit longer, but that is part of the process."
Maresca went on to talk about implementing new ideas on the field, due to which, they were able to enjoy three early chances in the game.
"We are trying so many things, and we have not had the chance to try everything because we only started 15 to 20 days ago. I think after five minutes, we had already had two or three chances to score a goal, and in the second half, until the third goal, our team was very good, again creating chances," he said.
"I think we didn't concede a shot [in the second half] until the 75th minute, and then we conceded the third goal, and it became more difficult. For me, it is important to realise the difference between us and them in physical conditioning. You can see they had already played four games in pre-season, and they are starting their official season very soon. Whereas for us, we struggled a little bit physically," he added.
Chelsea will return to action against Club America on Wednesday at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.
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