Enzo Maresca has acknowledged that Chelsea may be placing too much reliance on Cole Palmer and dismissed the criticism of the midfielder’s body language in rece
Chelsea dropped to seventh in the Premier League after a 2-1 defeat to Aston Villa on Saturday, where Palmer missed a clear opportunity with the game tied.
Palmer has gone six matches without a goal, dating back to January 14, and also squandered a chance to give Chelsea a 2-0 lead at Manchester City last month, a game they ultimately lost 3-1.
Ahead of Chelsea’s upcoming match against bottom-placed Southampton, Maresca addressed the situation on Tuesday: “I’m always concerned about overall performance, but I’m not worried about Cole because he’s human and can have moments during the season where he struggles a bit more.
“The issue with Cole is probably that we rely on him too much for everything, and I’ve said from the start that we need to depend on the whole team. Of course, we need key players like Cole, but we’re not concerned about him at all.”
Palmer has been experiencing a dip in form following an impressive start to the season. He showed signs of frustration during the Villa match, continuing a pattern from Chelsea’s recent defeats to Brighton. Maresca, however, denied that there was any deeper dissatisfaction.
“At the end of the day, there are also teammates who might be frustrated with the chances we missed against Villa and City. I think both chances were very clear ones for Cole, right?” he said.
“The other day we were at 1-1, a chance to go up 1-2 with ten minutes to go. Against City, it was 0-1, which could have been 0-2 after ten minutes, and I didn’t see his teammates frustrated. So, Cole is just upset because we’re not winning games, nothing more than that.”
When asked how the 22-year-old, who had been in excellent form until his recent slump, could return to his previous level of performance—having scored 14 goals and provided 6 assists in 26 league matches—Maresca replied: “He just needs to keep working the way he has been. The other day, yes, he had a great chance, but overall his performance was solid. As I always say, we expect him to score or assist in every game, which makes it difficult.
“He’s a human being, and right now, his performance is probably reflecting the team’s struggles, particularly with scoring goals. We need to be more clinical in front of goal.”
Maresca also confirmed that Filip Jorgensen would remain in goal despite his last-minute mistake that led to Villa’s victory.
Jorgensen had replaced Robert Sánchez following a series of errors, but Maresca stated: “If we changed players every time there was a mistake, we’d have to rotate players game by game. But no, nothing has changed.”
In injury news, Trevoh Chalobah will be sidelined for about ten days with a back issue.
