Enzo Maresca revealed he told his Chelsea players in the dressing room that they were giving away too many “presents” after the Blues fell to a 3-1 loss at home to Brighton.
Chelsea’s poor form continued on Saturday as Brighton came from behind to beat them, Fabian Hurzeler’s side growing in confidence in the second half once Trevoh Chalobah had been sent off for denial of a ‘clear goalscoring opportunity’.
It made it the second league game in a row in which Chelsea have received a red card, following Robert Sanchez’s fifth-minute dismissal at Old Trafford in last weekend’s 2-1 defeat to Manchester United.
The Blues have now lost three of their last four games and are contending with a centre-back shortage ahead of Tuesday’s Champions League match against Benfica and next weekend’s home game against Liverpool, for which Chalobah is suspended.
Since returning from the September international break, Chelsea have conceded 11 goals in five games and failed to keep any clean-sheets.
“The message that we just said inside [the dressing room] was quite clear,” said Maresca.
“With any team in the Premier League, you cannot continue to give away presents. What we are doing at the moment is giving away presents.
“That red card is a big mistake, because the game completely changed.”
Maresca was asked why his team were making so many individual mistakes.
“We need to learn, and we need to learn quick,” he said. “The reason why can be a mix of inexperience or simple mistakes. In terms of injuries, if you just watch the first half today you don’t think about the injured players, because first half we were in control and dominated the game.
“And then, I would like to tell you something different, but in the end it’s the reality: in the last two [league] games, with two red cards everything changed.”
