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Enzo Maresca has said Chelsea are over-reliant on Cole Palmer and rejected criticism of the midfielder’s body language in recent games.
Chelsea slipped to seventh in the Premier League with a 2-1 defeat at Aston Villa on Saturday, a game in which Palmer missed a clear chance with the scores level.
He has not scored in his last six matches dating back to Jan. 14 and also wasted a good opportunity to put Chelsea 2-0 up at Manchester City last month, a match they went on to lose 3-1.
Speaking on Tuesday ahead of the visit of rock-bottom Southampton, Maresca said: “I am always concerned about general performance but I am not concerned about Cole because Cole is a human being and during the season he can have some moments where he struggles a little bit more.
“The problem with Cole is probably that we rely on Cole for everything and I said since we start we need to rely on the team. For sure, we need big players, top players like Cole but we are not worried about Cole at all.”
Palmer appeared to vent his frustration on several occasions at Villa Park, following on from similar incidents in successive defeats to Brighton but Maresca denied there was any underlying unhappiness.
“At the end, also there are team mates that can be frustrated with the chances we miss against Villa and against City. I think both chances were Cole, no? Very clear,” he said.
“The other day we were 1-1, to score [to go] 1-2 [up], ten minutes to go. Against City, it was 0-1 could be 0-2 after 10 minutes and I didn’t see his team mates frustrated so Cole is just upset just because we are not winning games, no more than that.”
Asked how the 22-year-old — who had enjoyed a prolific campaign until his recent slump — could get back to the form which saw him amass 14 goals and six assists from 26 league games, Maresca replied: “Just continue working in the way he is working. The other day I think, yes, he had a great chance but overall the performance from Cole … as I said every game we expect from him a goal or assist so it is difficult.
“He is a human being. In this moment probably his performance also reflects a little bit the team performance — that we struggle to score goals — and we need to be a little more clinical in chances.”
Maresca also confirmed Filip Jørgensen will continue in goal after his last-minute error gifted Villa their win.
Jorgensen had replaced Robert Sánchez following a string of mistakes but Maresca said: “”If we need to change players every time there is a mistake, we need to change players game by game, many players. But no, nothing has changed.”
Meanwhile,Trevoh Chalobah is sidelined for around 10 days with a back problem.
