Enzo Maresca: What the data says

There is a big debate about Enzo Maresca for a while. I never asked that he can go, even though I'm sometimes close. I always wanted it to work with him and I still do it.

Head coach Enzo Maresca was heavily criticized. It seems that some fans are doing it personally, which I never like in football, and he is literally blamed, and people become too emotional and illogical in their argument. To form opinions based on raw emotions is a mistake that I made far too often, and I always regret it.

How can you judge him and how it does without emotions? Well, that's simple, data.

Everyone who has read my articles knows that I am a big fan for using data in football. Data, as Liverpool has two PL titles, is one CL, three domestic cups, a Supercup and Club World Championship, while they only spend a total of 800 million GBP and 600 million GBP for their current squad.

All serious, ambitious clubs use data in detail in recruitment and squad construction. The Liverpool database is so good that you can actually create data to show how managers are a cultural game for your club, which helped you recruit the last two managers. And we saw how it worked.

If data does not work in a club, it is because it is either poor data or is not used or interpreted correctly. What comes back to the sports directors in our club. I try to use reliable sources to get all of my data. I would like to use good data from good sources and use it properly. I did this with this article and used official PL data from your website and other reliable sources.

How well is Maresca doing according to the data?

Now, according to the official statistics of the PL, Maresca has a higher share of profit after 35 PL games than its predecessor Maurcio Pochettino, the proportion of which was 48%, with Enzo currently being 51%. In all competitions, its profit share is also higher than in 50%of Pochettino and is currently 59%.

Under Maresca in the PL we granted 41 goals in 35 games, 1.17 goals per game at the time of writing. This is the common third best in the PL with 3 games that were allowed for 44 goals. Last season we have 1.65 goals per game in the PL, 63 goals in 38 games. Therefore, our defense has improved considerably, which is a good performance in view of the lack of quality in the goalkeeper department.

For me, the defensive improvement is clearly due to the team structure that Maresca has set up because we have two poor GKS and not a real world -class CB in her Prime, Wesley Fofana, our best CB, has only played half a season. Last season we granted 63 goals in the league with the same CBS, and we had no structure at all. It was chaos and not sustainable.

Now we have a real tactical structure and our defense is much better. In the last 9 PL games we only granted 5 PL goals and two of them to Ipswich. In the 8 games before we conceded 13 goals. In these 9 PL games we only granted 23 shots on the goal, around 2.5 per game.

The actual test of this defense naturally started with Liverpool, the first top team that we played in this run. Against Liverpool, we only allowed 2 shots on the goal throughout the game while we had 7. So that's positive.

Our next 3 league games, Newcastle, Man UTD and Nottingham Forest, will also be a test. If we maintain the good defense in these games and score some goals, who knows what could happen.

Now our attack. According to the official statistics of PL, we have the second highest shots and great opportunities that were created in the PL with 3 games this season under Enzo Maresca. We had 568 shots, 16 shots per game and 87 great opportunities (2.5 per game, which is actually very good). Only Champions Liverpool are in front of us in both metrics. No wonder that Liverpool trainer Arne Slot said that he was surprised in our position in the league because the data is very clear.

Our chance conversion rate is somewhat lower where it has dropped at only 8.9%than last season. It takes no genius to know that it has more to do with the lack of proper recruitment, including a proper 9 and other goal -hinge attacks than with Maresca's coaching.

Nicolas Jackson had a two -month injury and a bad form because nobody came in and replaced it.

Some people also argue that Enzo Maresca has not improved players. But when I look at Enzo Fernandez, Moises Caicedo and Marc Cucurella are difficult to believe.

Fernandez had his best season so far and has 20 target participation, including 13 templates. Caicedo won the official Chelsea men's player of the year and Cucurella was consistently awarded this year. In my view, Noni Madueke has also improved this season, 11 goals and 5 templates. Josh Acheampong has also developed and improved in the season.

In a single season, Enzo Maresca also gave more academy debut than any Chelsea manager in history. I think this is really positive for you and for the club, and in my opinion it is a significant achievement given our history for talents from the Blooding Academy.

So overall at Enzo Maresca we have:

• Better defense

• Hit of the same / slightly worse

• More great opportunities

• Higher profit in PL and all competitions

• Some players have improved

• Most of the academies in a single season ever

I would also say that Enzo had exactly the same squad or probably a worse squad than last season, especially since we have been since Christmas. Palmer and Jackson have had no backup and much more low blocks since December, against whom we can play against them than we were in the 18 months before.

We had no real support in midfield or an improvement in the goalkeeper department. Only one of our constant obligations last summer, Pedro Neto, makes it into our first choice XI, and even then it is not 100% safe.

All of this arrives from our sports directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart and they are a big reason why I hesitate to demand Maresca. If you had done your job and had been a top gk, a proven elite 9 that met regularly, and maybe another goal that scored a winger last summer, was in the title race for much longer in the title race and would have been made comfortably with the same manager, the same tactic and the same facility. Cole Palmer could have been rested and we would have had more options.

Everything that was said, Maresca has Mistake made.

Football was sometimes absolutely bad, some team selections were very strange and Simon reported that some players didn't enjoy football. Not to mention Maresca's ridiculous comments to the media. He did not help himself, comments that indicate low standards that criticize fans, inconsistent comments, that's not good at all.

I personally were insulted by some of his comments, the fans for the draw against Ipswich accused, and he was very annoyed. I have largely relied on his inexperience at this level, which is not his fault. This is also due to the people above him who hired him, not Maresca himself.

On the other hand, many people criticized him for his comments after the game against Liverpool, but in my opinion this is unfair, and the comments were used selectively.

“I promise you that we are not planning to play deep, we wanted to play in the other way that we normally do, but we are glad that we played well.

We plan to press, But sometimes you have to adapt“”

He just said we didn't play as we wanted to play.

What he did was literally admitted that he tactically adapted to the opponent, which his critics asked him. But many people, especially how a certain BBC journalist shared the comments, read the first set without the context of the second. I will be honest. I think some of the fans have just chosen Maresca and is only looking for confirmation.

To be clear, I am by no means say that we should definitely keep Enzo Maresca, even though I admit that Liverpool's result curved me a little to keep it. The services against Everton and Liverpool with his first choice XI were awarded, and we will probably improve over the past year.

Add the squad problems, the positive data about our services and the fact that people have created this chaos above him – the sports directors – and should definitely go to the manager, and it is difficult for me to justify a decision to dismiss him. But I think it is advisable to see how the last games run before they really come to the final opinion.

I will be brutally honest, I also do not have the emotional energy or the appetite for more drama and upheaval in the club or on Twitter and campaign so that a manager is released to be honest.

We need a certain stability at Chelsea and we cannot start every year. One day we have to go through a phase as we did between January and April and get them out.

There are many evidence that Maresca has improved our team as a whole in view of the context. I would be quite confident if we have a real GK, a top CB, a proven goal scorer in advance, more goals in our attack in our attack in our squad, we would make better the next season and make the top 3 or 4 comfortable, even if Maresca is responsible. A better competition in the attack will also mean that Cole Palmer has more space than he this season and probably free points.

If Maresca gets all of this and then does not reach or we do not improve, it should definitely be replaced. But at the moment and until the season it is difficult to make this argument from my opinion.

The score