{"id":4533,"date":"2025-02-12T14:45:12","date_gmt":"2025-02-12T14:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chelseabluesnews.com\/?p=4533"},"modified":"2025-03-22T02:20:54","modified_gmt":"2025-03-22T02:20:54","slug":"enzo-maresca-believes-brightons-winner-should-clearly-have-been-disallowed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chelseabluesnews.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/12\/enzo-maresca-believes-brightons-winner-should-clearly-have-been-disallowed\/","title":{"rendered":"Enzo Maresca believes Brighton’s winner should clearly have been disallowed"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ashton Cox<\/em><\/p>\n

Enzo Maresca insisted that the handball was clear in Brighton’s winning goal, as they beat Chelsea 2-1 at the Amex Stadium.<\/p>\n

Tariq Lamptey’s shot was blocked by Moises Caicedo, with the rebound then striking Lamptey’s outstretched hand in the build-up to the winner.<\/p>\n

The Football Association’s decision not to use VAR before Round Five of the cup means no review of the goal took place.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the close proximity of both Caicedo and Lamptey plus the falling motion of the Brighton player means the goal may still have stood even with VAR.<\/p>\n

Maresca said: “I think the handball is quite clear. In the last two or three days there were many different moments in different games. Without VAR it’s complicated.”<\/p>\n

Chelsea were gifted their goal through a goalkeeping error as Cole Palmer’s poor cross was fumbled into the net by Bart Vurbruggen.<\/p>\n

Brighton manager Fabian Hurzeler accepted the mistake and claimed Vurbruggen remains a great goalkeeper.<\/p>\n

The German said: “Mistakes happen. If a keeper makes a mistake normally it’s a goal. We try to support him because he’s a great goalkeeper.”<\/p>\n

The West Londoners once again looked toothless in attack as Christopher Nkunku’s dreadful form as a number nine continued.<\/p>\n

This was opitimised when the Frenchman ran through on goal and decided not to shoot from close range, rather square the ball to nearby Palmer who could only head over.<\/p>\n

Still, Maresca believes the club won’t miss the loaned Joao Felix despite Nkunku’s form and Nicolas Jackson’s absence.<\/p>\n

The Italian said: “I don’t think we miss Joao…. Nico can be back very soon. Sometimes I think you need to play some games without players to realise how important they are.<\/p>\n

“Off the ball, his [Jackson’s] pressing is always very good and on the ball he is a threat always.”<\/p>\n

Chelsea opened the scoring inside the fifth minute as a patient corner routine led to Verbruggen bundling Palmer’s cross into his own net.<\/p>\n

Brighton responded quickly and were level in the 12th minute as Joel Veltman’s cross found an unmarked Joao Pedro, whose header found the bottom left corner.<\/p>\n

Kaoru Mitoma scored the winner in the 57th minute after Chelsea failed to clear their lines several times on top of shouts for a handball, before the ball finally broke for the Japanese winger to poke the ball over Robert Sanchez in goal.<\/p>\n

Palmer was at the centre of a desperate Chelsea resurgence and perhaps should have equalised in the 74th minute but he rushed his shot on the stretch as it went well wide of the target.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ashton Cox Enzo Maresca insisted that the handball was clear in Brighton’s winning goal, as they beat Chelsea 2-1 at the Amex Stadium. Tariq Lamptey’s shot was blocked by Moises Caicedo, with the rebound then striking Lamptey’s outstretched hand in the build-up to the winner. The Football Association’s decision not to use VAR before…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chelseabluesnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chelseabluesnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chelseabluesnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chelseabluesnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chelseabluesnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4533"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/chelseabluesnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4604,"href":"https:\/\/chelseabluesnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4533\/revisions\/4604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chelseabluesnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chelseabluesnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chelseabluesnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}