By Paul Green at the Emirates
ENZO Maresca admitted losing Cole Palmer through a muscle injury ahead of Sunday’s 1-0 defeat at Arsenal was a big blow.
Palmer is Chelsea’s leading scorer with fourteen goals to his name already this season and the Blues clearly struggled without him against the Gunners after the 22-year-old picked up a muscle injury on Saturday.
That looks set to keep him out of the England squad for the upcoming World Cup qualifiers against Albania and Latvia.
But it was on the pitch in north London where Palmer’s absence was felt the most as Chelsea came off second best to their rivals in the race for a Champions League spot.
Arsenal dominated the early exchanges and got their rewards in the 20th minute when Mikel Merino deftly headed home from Martin Odegaard’s corner.
Gabriel Martinelli blazed over as the hosts went in search of a second, while David Raya’s blushes were spared at the other end as Marc Cucurella’s attempt went through his hands on its way inches wide of the post.
Robert Sanchez produced a superb one-handed on the hour to somehow keep out Merino’s volley and the Blues goalkeeper was alert to deny Odegaard four minutes later.
But the Gunners comfortably held on for a deserved win to leave Maresca counting the cost of missing Palmer.
The SW6 boss said: “It is a huge difference. If you think that the three players with the most goals for us are Cole Palmer, Nicolas Jackson and Noni Madueke, not of them was on the pitch today.
“With two of them it is a very long time that they are out so at this moment offensively we can struggle a little bit even if I think until today we are the second- or third-best attacking [team] in the league.
“That means that we are in any case doing well without those players but we could do better with the players at this moment who are out injured.”
Chelsea are now without a Premier League win on the road since a 4-3 success at Spurs more than three months ago, a dip which put paid to those pre-Christmas hopes of a title challenge.
Maresca said: “We want to try to win more games away.
“In this moment we are winning games at home and we want to try to do the same away.
“At the beginning of the season we were winning games away and struggling in some games at home. Now it is on the other side.
“For sure we need to improve results away but overall I think we are [almost] there.”
Despite the setback, the Chelsea boss remains positive his side are still heading in the right direction and suggested there wasn’t that much difference between the Blues and Arsenal.
He explained: “I think we struggled at the very beginning. For the first 20 minutes we struggled a bit and then after that we started to control the game, we started to create some chances.
“And then in the second half the game was 50-50 and probably the biggest difference has been set-pieces strategy.”
Maresca added: “In the first game against Arsenal (a 1-1 draw in November) and today’s game I don’t see a big difference between us and them.
“This means that for me since I arrived I have the feeling that we are on the right path and we are very close.
“We are just that step forward [away] to compete also in these kind of games but probably that step comes also from finishing in the top four, five Champions League spots where you also grow in that competition.”
