It is rare that I find myself agreeing with Maresca's analysis of his own tactics but in this case I do. There was nothing wrong tactically in the first half, Chelsea just got outworked. So badly that Newcastle should have scored more than two. Now obviously as a manager sometimes you should change tactics in this situation just to stop the bleeding, but unlike SO many games under Maresca IMO that was not the problem.Unlike David, I actually felt the last ten minutes plus extra time of the first half showed a marked shift in Chelsea's favor. I can't say I expected the dominance Chelsea showed in the second half, but I did expect at least one goal.If our worst complaint about Maresca were non-tactical - that Chelsea sometimes come out flat and get outworked - the club would have a few more points this season. So on balance he gets an average grade for this game IMO.I still have little faith that he won't revert to his approaches against weaker sides that haven't worked, but perhaps the coming months will prove that Everton was a turning point and he's finally learned his lesson. yesterday's game was neither confirmation or rejection of that hope.

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I'm married to a good therapist so I have that covered. That said, she's not convinced anyone in her field has sufficient training to deal with someone who watched Maresca's Chelsea play against lesser opposition :)

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