Scout says lack of “steel” costing Chelsea; warns of board “making a decision” over Maresca | OneFootball

Mick Brown has been delivering some really interesting stuff for Football Insider recently, and today is no different.

Ahead of a huge game against Aston Villa, the noted Premier League scout explained just what he thought was going wrong with the Blues at the moment:

“The biggest problem at Chelsea is the lack of stability in the side. They’ve got some good assets, but at the back the solidity just isn’t there, and then that spreads throughout the team and the performances,” Brown opined.

“All of a sudden, they look shaky and stop taking so many risks and you wonder why. But it shows, to me, defenders are worth their weight in gold.

“Until they get back to defending solidly, they won’t get the best out of players like Cole Palmer because every time something doesn’t come off, they look behind them and they’re in trouble. That doesn’t bode well for anybody and it saps the confidence from these players.

“I don’t see that steel in Chelsea, and it’s something the manager absolutely has to address. If you can’t stop opposition teams from scoring, you’re going to keep losing games. And when you keep losing games, then the pressure starts to build on the manager.

“They’re in a terrible run of form at the moment, and they’ll need to turn things around within the next few weeks or you can see the board making a decision.“

Maresca under pressure – but not imminent sack pressure

Todd Boehly and Enzo Maresca. (Photo by Alex Pantling, Michael Regan/Getty Images)

We think Maresca’s position is far safer than Brown makes out – we can’t see the board sacking him before the end of the season, even if we do end up somehow crashing out of the top 4.

But his diagnosis of what’s going wrong on the pitch is very solid, and those issues could well haunt us this afternoon against a well drilled and well organised Aston Villa side.