London is Blue Dispatch #095

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Watch that clip of jubilant Chelsea players celebrating Champions League football in the dressing room, and you’d be forgiven for missing it on your first watch. In the first team dressing room, a place most managers refuse to enter out of respect for the privacy of their players, Enzo Maresca blends perfectly into the youngest PL squad to qualify for the Champions League. When he sat in his last post-game presser of the league season, he insisted that the doubt was from outside, before telling those that cast aspersions - ‘f*** off to all of them.’ The man who once meekly said qualifying for the Champions League wasn’t necessarily a goal for this season was finally talking with the kind of self-assurance bordering on arrogance that a Chelsea manager needs to survive.

The first of two finals for Maresca and his side delivered all the pain it promised. A resilient Forest outshot the Blues 10 to 6 and nudged past them on xG (1.20 to 1.09.) Forest were in the bottom 3 for average possession all season, but at one point in the game their control of the ball touched 64%. Tosin and Colwill only lost one aerial duel amongst them against the best attacking set-piece team in the league; Chris Wood did not win a single one. Wood, who has scored a magnificent 20 league goals this season, uncharacteristically produced his most wasteful game this season, spurning two golden chances totalling close to 1.0 xG. Call it luck or just plain old grit, the Blues made their own fortune as much as lady luck drizzled a little upon them.

Chelsea’s run-in to the end of the season has demanded both qualities in adequate measure. In the past 6 league games, Chelsea have scored only 8 and yet have won 5 of those – three of them being 1-0 wins. They’ve won most of them without a center-forward or without the talismanic gifts of the inimitable Cole Palmer, who went 22 league games without a goal or assist, compared to just 14 last season. An 11th cleansheet is Chelsea’s best tally since the 21/22 season.

Maturity, from both manager and squad, have been key in these do-or-die moments. Colwill’s early season form, after being paired with 4 different CB partners, was understandably inconsistent. In these last few games though, the England international has allowed his beast to dominate over the beautiful elements of his game. There is a ferocity, urgency and bite that could yet propel him to the kind of expectations heaped upon him after his breakout season.

Maresca has benefitted from compromising and easing his vice-grip on his principles too. The much-maligned inverted fullback role he preferred has been used sparingly at best, with Caicedo returning to home in the defensive pivot and James being asked to perform a more well-suited role vs Forest as the RB/RCB. Marc Cucurella, arguably the revelation of the season, was the one inverting here, understandable considering he did play midfield for Getafe. Part of Chelsea’s teething issues have been solved simply by playing players in roles suited to them rather than trying to force-fit them into a predefined structure. In the last two 1-0 wins, he has subbed on Lavia for a winger to protect his lead, moving Palmer up top and solidifying the center. Both times Chelsea walked away with an invaluable three points.

The biggest question going into next season was never going to be about results. The brief that Maresca was going to stay was out even before the Forest game kicked off. The big question was whether the players still believed in Maresca and his ideology. And as cameras pierced the hermetically sealed dressing room where tensions must have run high during the season, one could see Maresca thumbing a green bin in elation, teleported back to his days as a player, embracing his captain after helping him play three times as many minutes in all competitions compared to last season. At the full time whistle, Chelsea players ushered their manager in front of the away crowd, a sure shot sign that the respect and belief are alive and well. One other final remains which now requires undivided attention. The last missing piece from the trophy cabinet beckons, and Maresca knows bringing it home will mean all of his critics, including myself, can truly f-off.