There was not a single Chelsea player who could come away from the Leeds match with any sense of pride.
Afterwards, Enzo Maresca looked like he was feeling what everyone else had just sat through at Elland Road. The frustration was clear on his face.
Some of the line-up choices had fans turning on Maresca, and it sounded like even he was not convinced by all of them when he spoke post-match.
One thing he did stick by, though, was pulling Estevao Willian at half-time. He felt there were good reasons for it, even if not everyone agreed.
Estevao Willian receives rare criticism from Enzo Maresca
While no Chelsea player stood out at Elland Road, Estevao’s performance felt particularly flat compared to the standard he has set for himself in recent weeks.
Maresca attributed the 18-year-old’s frustration to the hostile environment, which he believes overwhelmed the player. This frustration was evident when the youngster kicked out at Anton Stach, earning a caution.
The Italian manager said after the game (via Football London): “I think the feeling with Estevao was a little bit, ‘welcome to Premier League, welcome to Leeds’. The impact for him must have been probably a big, big impact for him.
“The reason why we changed him is because he was already on a yellow card. Sometimes when you are 18, you struggle to manage emotion, so it was better to change him and to avoid any red card.”
Maresca did not cite discipline as an issue this time around – but his comment about not wanting Estevao to pick up another card suggests it is always on his mind.
The mention of ‘Welcome to the Premier League’ stands out.
While Estevao has not shown any real struggles adapting from Brazil before now, Leeds away is exactly the type of match where young players can get caught off guard. This time, he did seem overwhelmed.
Enzo Maresca hopes Chelsea’s display against Leeds was just a blip
It is easy to focus on individual mistakes in matches like this, but the real issue was how poor the team looked as a whole unit.
Maresca is hopeful it was just a bad night. He stated: “I hope that we had a bad night, because it’s a game that you struggle to find something that you can take from the game.
“I think, again, they were on the ball, off the ball, towards second ball, they were much better than us in all the aspects.”
There was plenty of hype around this Chelsea side before the match. Some were even talking about a title challenge after their recent run of form. Daniel Farke said himself that the Blues can challenge for the title.
This result felt like another throwback to last season – an away match many expected Chelsea to win comfortably.
Maresca finished by saying: “There is nothing that we can take from this game. The only thing we can do is try to understand the mistake we made, try to reset because again, in 48 hours, we have another game.”
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