{"id":9211,"date":"2025-02-22T20:01:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-22T21:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/?p=9211"},"modified":"2025-02-22T22:07:37","modified_gmt":"2025-02-22T22:07:37","slug":"enzo-maresca-names-chelsea-star-who-played-really-well-in-aston-villa-defeat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/22\/enzo-maresca-names-chelsea-star-who-played-really-well-in-aston-villa-defeat\/","title":{"rendered":"Enzo Maresca names Chelsea star who played \u2018really well\u2019 in Aston Villa defeat"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Enzo Maresca after Chelsea’s defeat to Aston Villa (Picture: YouTube)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Enzo Maresca<\/a> was disappointed after Chelsea<\/a>’s ‘poor run’ continued against Aston Villa<\/a> but was glad to see one tactical shift bear fruit.<\/p>\n

Enzo Fernandez’s early goal gave Chelsea a first-half lead at Villa Park but the hosts scored two second-half goals to win 2-1<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Marco Asensio scored both of Villa’s goals and fellow January signing Marcus Rashford<\/a> recorded two assists in an impressive second-half cameo for Unai Emery’s side.<\/p>\n

It was Chelsea’s third defeat in four league games and Maresca admitted it was ‘tough’ to take as he felt his side deserved at least a point.<\/p>\n

Maresca was, however, pleased with Pedro Neto’s performance after experimenting with the Wolves winger in a striker role in training this week.<\/p>\n

Neto started as a striker as Chelsea top goalscorer Nicolas Jackson remains injured<\/a> and Christopher Nkunku struggled in that position in the successive defeats to Brighton<\/a>.<\/p>\n

‘It is a tough one,’ said Maresca. ‘Because compared to the game against Brighton, the performance and reaction were good.<\/p>\n

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Villa scored a late goal to down Chelsea (Picture: Getty)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

‘At the moment, we are in a bad run. But we need to stick together and try to win games. I have a feeling we will go again if we win a game.<\/p>\n

‘Until that, we need to work hard and try to get the win as soon as possible. We created many chances. Last two games, we struggled with that and lacked a threat.<\/p>\n

‘Today, Pedro [Neto] played really well and we tried with him during the week. It works well with him. But we did not win and we have to be upset.<\/p>\n

‘If you are not clinical, this league is always open – if you make a mistake, like we did in the second goal unfortunately. When we have the chance, we have to take that.<\/p>\n

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Maresca was pleased with makeshift Chelsea striker Pedro Neto (Picture: Getty)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

‘Once again today, we showed we can be good for long parts of the game. But that’s not enough. The performance has to be complete.<\/p>\n

‘We need to score goals when we have the chance and defend well, but I thought we defended well today. It is a moment were we were also a bit unlucky.’<\/p>\n

Aston Villa’s late winner came courtesy of a howler from Chelsea goalkeeper Filip Jorgensen, who failed to keep out Asensio’s tame effort.<\/p>\n

Maresca dropped Chelsea No. 1 Robert Sanchez for Jorgensen earlier in the month<\/a> but faces a similar dilemma with the Denmark U21 international.<\/p>\n

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Villa were helped by a howler from the Chelsea goalkeeper (Picture: Getty)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Asked if he was concerned by the goalkeeping situation at Stamford Bridge, Maresca added: ‘I am always concerned, even when we were winning games, I was concerned. Now for sure.<\/p>\n

‘The problem with that with goalkeepers, it is a delicate position and when they make a mistake, everyone can see.<\/p>\n

‘Unfortunately today, our goalkeeper [Filip Jorgensen] made a mistake. This is a moment we need to support each other and try to stay strong.’<\/p>\n

The result means Chelsea stay sixth in the Premier League – one point outside the Champions League spots – while Aston Villa climb to seventh, one point behind Maresca’s side.<\/p>\n

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It was another painful outcome for struggling Chelsea (Picture: Getty)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Villa boss Emery said: ‘In the last match at home [against Liverpool], we were playing more or less good but it wasn’t enough. We can get points by playing well but also by trying to avoid mistakes.<\/p>\n

‘Playing Chelsea today was a very good test. We started very badly – conceding the goal and not winning duels. But we were improving and in the second half, I was thinking we could be tired.<\/p>\n

‘But we were confident and dominated the match more or less. The players did a fantastic job. That was our plan. We played 90 minutes very consistent and focussed on our game plan.<\/p>\n

‘We had chances against Liverpool and Ipswich Town but we didn’t score so getting this victory today is very important.<\/p>\n

‘Energy is very important. We were speaking in the dressing room at half-time we needed to recover energy.<\/p>\n

‘On the field, they had to transmit energy and in the second half, they did it. They did everything. The impact players were fantastic.’<\/p>\n

For more stories like this,\u00a0check our sport page<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Follow Metro Sport for the latest news on Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0<\/strong>Twitter<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Instagram<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Enzo Maresca after Chelsea’s defeat to Aston Villa (Picture: YouTube) Enzo Maresca was disappointed after Chelsea’s ‘poor run’ continued against Aston Villa but was glad to see one tactical shift bear fruit. Enzo Fernandez’s early goal gave Chelsea a first-half lead at Villa Park but the hosts scored two second-half goals to win 2-1. Marco…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9213,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9211"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9211"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9219,"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9211\/revisions\/9219"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preforeclosurefortunes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}