Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca has suggested that he is growing frustrated with the amount of "very easy" chances that are being missed by his players.
The Blues went into the second leg of their Conference League quarter-final against Legia Warsaw on Thursday night holding a 3-0 advantage from the first fixture in Poland last week.
However, Chelsea found themselves 1-0 down inside 10 minutes at Stamford Bridge and ultimately lost the game 2-1, albeit progressing 4-2 on aggregate.
Despite earning a last-four showdown with Swedish side Djurgarden, there is growing discontent among the fanbase courtesy of recent results and Maresca's insistence to play a certain style of football.
© Imago
'We are missing easy chances'
Speaking at a press conference after the game, Maresca acknowledged that his side need to start capitalising on fast starts to games, with three such openings to game at Stamford Bridge since the international break not leading to any goals.
The Italian said, as quoted by football.london: "Especially the ones that we are missing, unfortunately they are very easy goals, because again I think tonight in the first five minutes we had two chances, but it can happen, hopefully very soon Nico [Jackson] and Cole [Palmer] can start to score goals because they are very important for us.
"In this moment the one that is scoring more goals for us is Cucu [Marc Cucurella], and that means a good thing because he's not the one that has to score goals."
On the game itself, Maresca reflected: "We are for sure not happy with the defeat. Probably the first leg, 0-3, probably we try to manage a little bit the result, rotate, make rotation with the players, try to avoid injury, because we have an important game also Sunday. So, as I said, for sure not happy with the result.
"We are in the semi-final, but at the same time probably we were trying to manage a little bit the first leg, the result, we are there.
"But overall, the good thing is that we can rotate players, we don't have injury, that for us was the main target, because during the season we had many injuries, an important moment, and because it's an important moment now, the last part of the season, the good news was that we don't have injury."
© Imago
What next for Chelsea?
Chelsea must now turn their attention to facing Fulham in the Premier League on Sunday, an important game in the race for European qualification when their ninth-placed opponents sit just six points behind them with six games to go.
There is then a free midweek before playing host to Everton in the Saturday lunchtime kickoff on April 26, with the first leg of the meeting with Djurgarden in Sweden taking place on May 1.
Darren Plant
