Enzo Maresca was upset 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 however the hosts scored two second-half goals to win 2-1.
Marco Asensio scored each of Villa’s goals and fellow January signing Marcus Rashford recorded two assists in a powerful second-half cameo for Unai Emery’s side.
It was Chelsea’s third defeat in 4 league games and Maresca admitted it was ‘tough’ to take as he felt his side deserved no less than some extent.
Maresca was, nevertheless, pleased with Pedro Neto’s performance after experimenting with the Wolves winger in a striker role in training this week.
Neto began as a striker as Chelsea top goalscorer Nicolas Jackson stays injured and Christopher Nkunku struggled in that position within the successive defeats to Brighton.
‘It’s a troublesome one,’ said Maresca. ‘Because in comparison with the sport against Brighton, the performance and response were good.
‘In the mean time, we’re in a nasty run. But we’d like to stay together and check out to win games. I even have a sense we are going to go again if we win a game.
‘Until that, we’d like to work hard and check out to get the win as soon as possible. We created many possibilities. Last two games, we struggled with that and lacked a threat.
‘Today, Pedro [Neto] played rather well and we tried with him throughout the week. It really works well with him. But we didn’t win and we’ve to be upset.
‘In case you usually are not clinical, this league is all the time open – for those who make a mistake, like we did within the second goal unfortunately. When we’ve the prospect, we’ve to take that.
‘Once more today, we showed we could be good for long parts of the sport. But that’s not enough. The performance must be complete.
‘We’d like to attain goals when we’ve the prospect and defend well, but I believed we defended well today. It’s a moment were we were also a bit unlucky.’
Aston Villa’s late winner got here courtesy of a howler from Chelsea goalkeeper Filip Jorgensen, who didn’t keep out Asensio’s tame effort.
Maresca dropped Chelsea No. 1 Robert Sanchez for Jorgensen earlier within the month but faces an analogous dilemma with the Denmark U21 international.
Asked if he was concerned by the goalkeeping situation at Stamford Bridge, Maresca added: ‘I’m all the time concerned, even once we were winning games, I used to be concerned. Now needless to say.
‘The issue with that with goalkeepers, it’s a fragile position and after they make a mistake, everyone can see.
‘Unfortunately today, our goalkeeper [Filip Jorgensen] made a mistake. It is a moment we’d like to support one another and check out to remain strong.’
The result means Chelsea stay sixth within the Premier League – one point outside the Champions League spots – while Aston Villa climb to seventh, one point behind Maresca’s side.
Villa boss Emery said: ‘Within the last match at home [against Liverpool], we were playing roughly good but it surely wasn’t enough. We will get points by playing well but additionally by attempting to avoid mistakes.
‘Playing Chelsea today was a excellent test. We began very badly – conceding the goal and never winning duels. But we were improving and within the second half, I used to be pondering we could possibly be drained.
‘But we were confident and dominated the match roughly. The players did a unbelievable job. That was our plan. We played 90 minutes very consistent and focussed on our game plan.
‘We had possibilities against Liverpool and Ipswich Town but we didn’t rating so getting this victory today could be very necessary.
‘Energy could be very necessary. We were speaking within the dressing room at half-time we would have liked to recuperate energy.
‘On the sphere, that they had to transmit energy and within the second half, they did it. They did the whole lot. The impact players were unbelievable.’
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