LONDON — Enzo Maresca was right after all: Chelsea are not currently in the Premier League title race.
Saturday’s 1-1 draw at Crystal Palace extended a troubling pattern, originating over the festive period, in which the Blues have struggled to translate their superiority to the scoreline and later been punished for that profligacy.
They were 1-0 up and operating with a degree of comfort at a bitterly cold Selhurst Park. Cole Palmer’s composed 14th-minute finish after excellent wide play from Jadon Sancho gave them a deserved lead as Palace, timid for much of the first half, only sporadically threatened to find a way back.
But Chelsea failed to further their lead and Jean-Philippe Mateta finished a fine move involving Ismaïla Sarr and Eberechi Eze in the 82nd minute to leave Maresca frustrated that the one prediction he didn’t want to come true is appearing before his eyes.
“Two, three weeks ago, we were talking about the title race but we knew that Newcastle, Aston Villa would be there,” Maresca said. “[Manchester] City will be for sure there. For me it is not about the table, it is to see how we can improve things. The performance was very good on the ball and off the ball. But this moment of the season, I knew that it is going to happen in any season for any team, you have some moments where you are not going to win games.
“Sometimes it is for one reason or different reasons, and today if I have to decide the reason why we didn’t win the game, it is that we have to be clinical when you have a chance to kill the game because at 2-0 the game is probably finished. If you continue to be open, open, open, at the end you are going to concede some transitions, some corners and you can concede.”
Maresca insisted Chelsea could not be considered title contenders when they sat just two points behind leaders Liverpool on Dec. 15 with a 2-1 win over Brentford. Since then, they have drawn 0-0 at Everton, lost at home to Fulham and away to lowly Ipswich Town before this latest draw at Palace.
In every game except against Fulham, Chelsea had a higher expected goals (xG) figure than their opponent. Across the four games, Chelsea amassed 61 shots to their opponents’ 39.
“I always said the important thing is to create chances,” Maresca said. “If you do that, you are doing the right things. Then you have to take those chances. If you think about the Ipswich game, we had again so many chances. Sometimes it is football. Sometimes you create one chance and you score one, sometimes you need to create 10 to score two. In this moment it is like this.
“What do we do? Try to be even more intense during the week when we prepare the game even if the intensity or the intention of the players is top. For sure, it is something we need to improve, [still knowing] that we are one of the two or three best teams in scoring goals in this moment.”
That last point is a fair one. Palmer’s goal — his 13th from 20 league games — was the Blues’ 39th of the campaign.
They only scored 38 in the whole of last season as teething problems from the rapid influx of players and a new head coach, Mauricio Pochettino, beset their season. Maresca has brought a degree of calm this campaign, something that stands as an outlier ever since Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital completed their takeover of the club in May 2022.
And there were positives to take against Palace. Eyes turn to the transfer market at this time of year but Chelsea already know they will commit around £25 million to sign Sancho in the summer as per the terms of their seasonlong loan agreement with Manchester United, which includes an obligation to sign the winger permanently.
Sancho’s assist for Palmer’s opening goal was magnificent, beating Palace defender Chris Richards with a superb stepover in a flash of the quality that has, at one time or another, made him such a compelling option for United, Manchester City and Borussia Dortmund.
This time last year, Sancho was training on his own following a dispute with then-United manager Erik ten Hag. He then rejoined former club Dortmund on loan just a few days later with his career at a crossroads.
There are signs of life for him now, but Sancho faded in the second period as Palace roused themselves. In truth, Nicolas Jackson was the bigger culprit. He wasted three good chances, one in the second half, and the cautious mood inside the stadium suggested a second Chelsea goal would have ended the game as a meaningful contest.
For a while, it appeared 18-year-old debutant Josh Acheampong would mark his first league start with a clean sheet. Maresca bemoaned the lengthy absences of centre-backs Wesley Fofana and Benoît Badiashile in compromising the way he wanted to defend one-on-one against certain opponents, specifically lone strikers Dominic Solanke (Tottenham) and Ollie Watkins (Aston Villa).
Palace’s Mateta fell into a similar category here and Acheampong’s physicality helped Chelsea operate with a degree of control until that collective second-half drop.
Chelsea are not alone in requiring Liverpool to lose their way to create a wider title race in the second half of the campaign. But much more of this and Maresca will be left to focus on a top-four scramble with the title permanently out of reach, just like he always claimed it was.
