ENZO Maresca believes the Blues’ defeat to Villa on Saturday doesn’t reflect their 10-point deficit.
Chelsea hosted Unai Emery’s side knowing that victory would take them within four points of the visitors and 10 off the top of the table.
The Blues dominated the first half and deservedly took a narrow 1-0 lead into the break, through Joao Pedro’s back leg.
The Villains failed to muster a single shot on target in the opening 45, leading Emery to bring on Ollie Watkins and put Jadon Sancho and Morgan Rogers on the wings.
This cancelled out the extra centre-back that Chelsea had when the ball went long, meaning Villa now had the advantage going forward, with a Watkins brace eventually winning the game for the visitors.
A 10-point gap now separates Aston Villa in third and Chelsea in fifth.
Maresca said: “Yeah, in this moment it’s [Champions League qualification] the target. I think tonight’s game doesn’t reflect the 10 points difference between us and Villa, to be honest. So we need to be confident and we need to think that hopefully we can go close again to the ones that are ahead of us.”
The Italian manager says that positives can be taken from the first hour of proceedings, notably their defensive overload smothering the Villa attack.
He gave examples from Villa’s recent threat going forward in their victory against league leaders Arsenal to show how well the Blues did in dealing with this.
“I think for one hour we can take many positive things. Not many teams create so many chances against them. They just said to me that in the first half they were 0.0.0 in terms of xG, they didn’t create nothing. And I watched Arsenal’s game, the game they won, and they always create [chances].
“Again, these are many positive things, but for sure we need to understand how to manage better when we concede goals.”
The Blues now face a second match against fellow strugglers AFC Bournemouth in the space of a month.
Their initial clash, at the Vitality Stadium, ended in a bore goalless draw in which neither team deserved to win, despite the Cherries at the time being five games without victory.
That number now stands at nine, yet Chelsea may have to beat the team in fifteenth without Cole Palmer and Reece James.
Maresca remained coy whether they would be ready to start: “We need to see how they are tomorrow [Sunday], and then we can decide.”
However, he gave a more definitive answer on the fitness of Jorrel Hato, who looks sure to miss out.
“I don’t think [he will be available] so, no, I don’t think so.”