By Ashton Cox
Enzo Maresca praised his players for what he believes was a serious and professional performance as Chelsea eased to a 5-0 win against League Two Morecambe.
Despite initially struggling to find a way past the Shrimps, once the Blues took the lead they never let their intensity levels drop despite being cruising at 3-0 up with 20 minutes to play.
This was reflected in the match stats, showing the Londoners with an 81.1% share of possession and a ratio of 28:7 shots in favour of the home side.
As such, there was never an opportunity for the underdogs to make any sort of recovery from their losing position, which has pleased the manager.
Maresca said: “I’m very happy especially because in these kind of games you have to show how serious and professional you are, and I think they showed that. It’s the game for them [Morecambe] so you have to be, as I said, you have to be ready.”
Despite his side being well beaten, Morecambe boss Derek Adams took several positives from the performance, especially the early period.
The visitors had some bright attacks early on with the scores level and even spurned some late attacks with the outcome already decided, resulting in four shots on goal overall.
Adams said: “I thought we started the game very well, we created some very good opportunities in the match, [we] were probably unfortunate not to have scored in that first period.
“I think we should have had a goal today.”
Maresca spoke of his delight at Tosin bagging a brace but did put this down to Morecambe’s deep defensive line giving the defenders space on the edge of the box which you wouldn’t typical have in the league.
Both the English centre-back and his partner Axel Disasi were more than happy to shoot from outside the box when the opportunity arose, which led to the two goals.
The Italian said: “They [Morecambe] were marking man-to-man inside of the box and there was no space. He [Tosin] was the only one who could carry the ball and try that option, also Axel Disasi tried it a few times.”
Chelsea missed an early opportunity for the lead through a penalty given via handball, as Harry Burgoyne saved Christopher Nkunku’s penalty.
With half-time looming and the League Two side maintaining the deadlock in their low defensive block, Tosin fancied his chances from range and a deflection helped his effort past a helpless goalkeeper into the net.
The former Fulham defender scored another goal outside of the box in the second half, after Nkunku had doubled the Blues’ lead from 12 yards out for his 13th goal of the season.
Moments later, Joao Felix netted two goals of his own; The first was a low shot drilled into the left corner, the second was a wonderful curling effort from an angle that looped over Burgoyne in the goal.