By Ashton Cox
Enzo Maresca has said that he doesn’t think that the difference between Chelsea and Arsenal is big, after the Blues’ 1-0 defeat away at Arsenal.
Mikel Merino’s 20th minute header was enough for the three points as the away side failed to muster even a glimmer of a comeback and had just two shots on goal.
Chelsea remain in fourth position but sit nine points adrift of the Gunners in second.
The West Londoners are now winless in the last seven matches against their rivals, having lost five of them, however the Italian manager thinks the two sides are very close together.
He said: “What I can say between the first game against Arsenal and today’s game, to be honest, I don’t see a big difference between us and them.
“This means we are for me, since I arrived, I have the feeling we are on the right path and we are very close.”
Merino’s goal was Arsenal’s 11th from a corner this season under the tactics of Nicolas Jover, despite them only scoring twice via this method since December.
Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta confirmed that the set-piece routine was planned ahead of the game.
He said: “We worked on something similar with that finish, to be fair it was a different kind of finish planned, but we’re very happy because that would generate the lift in the team again.
“We’ve been so prolific on that and [especially] with the amount of injuries that we had to deal with in the front line, so very happy with that.”
The loss means that the Blues have now failed to claim victory in their last seven Premier League away games dating back to December’s 4-3 win at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
They currently occupy ninth place in the Premier League away-from-home table.
Maresca said: “First of all we are going to try and win games away. At the moment, we are winning games at home and we are going to try and do the same away. At the beginning of the season, we were winning games away and struggled at home.
“Now it’s the other side. We are there, for sure, we need to improve away but overall I think we are good.”