London is Blue Dispatch #064

“We did our analyst work yesterday, put their players on the board and just thought what are we going to do here?” said Barrow’s sporting director Iain Wood before the game. “Our lads are just going to give it their best shot, maybe they can send some of their guys on loan to us!”

Wood’s sentiment didn’t take long to hit home. With Maresca making eleven changes to the side that comfortably dispatched West Ham, what should have been a PL’s B team was essentially an extended A-list. Barrow arrived in a 5-3-2, a curt nod to the old English Gods of Dyche and Allardyce, holy fathers of the long ball to the two up-top; smash-and-grab, bash-and-bruise school of a different era.

Chelsea pushed straight into a highly attacking 3-1-5-1 – Joao Felix, Dewsbury-Hall and Malo Gusto functioning as three attacking midfielders for Casadei to pick, with Christopher Nkunku dropping to make a 4^th, popping up wherever Barrow’s creaking structure conceded space. When Felix did find a pocket to breathe in, Barrow froze, watching the Portuguese international’s scoop sail straight into Nkunku’s path for a coolly placed finish.

It was one of those rare games where everything that was planned came off. “I spoke with Malo before the game to cross it to the first post,” revealed Nkunku in the post-game interview. One promptly arrived quickly after the first goal for a lovely finish flicked deftly into the far post. There was a 3-0 lead to take into half-time without really breaking a sweat. Premeditated introductions of Josh Acheampong for the recently recovered Malo Gusto & Tyrique George were also a luxury gratefully accepted. Carney Chukwuemeka and Ben Chilwell came from out in the cold to warm applause. Just like that, the sour fog that has hung around the Bridge since the start to the season lifted a little more.

What should have been a procession in the second half, however, was anything but. The Blues forged two big chances in the first five minutes; the shot count quadrupled in the 2^nd half from five to 20. It was perhaps a message to the manager, that they would not simply go through the motions of being his “other” picks. Mudryk, increasingly growing in stature, dropped his shoulders and burned the grass multiple times in hitting the byline, setting up another under-pressure signing in Pedro Neto on the other flank. Nkunku’s third rounded off a stellar evening.

Which brings us to the big question – what did we learn from the Barrow game? Simply put, as much as we did by beating Wrexham in the first game of preseason under Pochettino. A 3-1-5-1 will seldom be used in the PL. Player-for-player, the gulf in quality was too vast to make any sweeping assessments or predictions. What both games did provide though, were massive psychological boosts at critical junctures. After scoring just 3 in 3 against Servette, Bournemouth and Palace, the floodgates opened with eight big chances created for five strikes. This was also the first time the club managed 3 clean-sheets in a row in 699 days, the last instance coming under the early days of Graham Potter’s reign.

At this point in Maresca’s tenure, the fan disenchantment has lessened, individual and collective confidence from the last season’s ending run has sustained and a porous defense has finally sniffed the pleasant aroma of freshly ironed clean-sheets (hat-tip to Ollie Glanvill.) Maresca couldn’t have asked for better conditions to stabilize an unsteady ship as he looks to steer it towards calmer, more bountiful shores.