Chelsea legend Frank Leboeuf did not hold back with his assessment of Enzo Maresca’s tactics at the Etihad on Saturday.
Chelsea took the lead against Manchester City but failed to take advantage of their good start to the game.
Man City eventually managed to turn things around and come out as 3-1 victors, much to Frank Leboeuf‘s dismay.
Gary Neville was quite critical of Cole Palmer after the game, but it was Maresca whom Leboeuf decided to go after.
Frank Leboeuf slams Enzo Maresca for making Chelsea play so high
City’s approach to their victory over Chelsea was quite different to what English football has come to expect from them.
They were very direct against their Premier League opponents on Saturday, which is how they scored their goals, and Leboeuf has now criticised Maresca for not dropping his team back and allowing them to get killed with balls over the top.
Speaking on ESPN FC, the Chelsea legend said: “I mean, everything was bad. The mentality was bad, they got sloppy after the first goal, they didn’t finish the game after the chance that they had and after they played too high on the field.
“The first time that I’m very upset with Maresca because we all know that Manchester City cannot cope with the situation when you wait for them now and you counter-attack. And Chelsea have so many weapons to cope with that and to kill Manchester City. Instead of that, he played high on the field and be caught in his own tactic. That’s insane for me!”
Like Maresca himself, Leboeuf never wanted to call Chelsea title contenders. Now, the former World Cup winner will not even want to consider them as one of the favourites to finish in the Champions League places. They have dropped out of the top four following that loss.
Enzo Maresca needed to adapt
Individually, there were some very bad performances on the day. Levi Colwill got destroyed by Erling Haaland, for instance.
But the team as a whole defended badly, and Maresca has to take responsibility for that. They were getting beaten by balls into the channel and over the top too easily. It is true, that backline probably did need to drop a bit deeper.
Hopefully, Maresca and Chelsea can learn from this. While the likes of Palmer and Nicolas Jackson probably could have been a bit more clinical in attack, how the Blues defended is what cost them the game.
If there was a time to beat City, it was on Saturday after their struggles this season. Opportunity missed.
