Every word Enzo Maresca said on Chelsea loss, Stamford Bridge issue and Joao Pedro form

Enzo Maresca has just completed his post-match press conference following Chelsea's disappointing 2-1 defeat at home to Sunderland.

The Blues took the lead just four minutes in through Alejandro Garnacho's first goal for the club, but the Black Cats levelled later in the first-half through Wilson Isidor. The hosts pushed for the winning goal at Stamford Bridge, but it was the visitors that left the stadium shocked in stoppage time.

Chemsdine Talbi's calm finish into the bottom corner sent the away end into ecstasy and earned Sunderland all three points in west London. Maresca has just offered his reflection on the match and the performance from his team. You can read every word the head coach had to say below:

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What did you make of the game?

I think in general we were not good enough. When you are not good enough in the Premier League, we know that the consequence can be the bad one. The second goal we conceded, I said already many times, when you are not able to win, it's important that you don't lose. But even with that, it's not a transition because a transition when you are open or it's 1v1, it's just one long ball in behind. We are 2v1 with the two central defenders and we didn't defend properly.

The first goal came from a throw. Again, it's difficult to deal because they bring six, seven, eight players inside the box, so it's difficult. But overall, I think we were not good enough.

What did you make of the defending for Sunderland's second goal?

Again, it can be an easy situation because we are 2v1. The striker is facing his goal, so it's with the back. It's an easy situation to defend but probably we tried to manage a little bit because it was 92-93, I don't know which minute it was. But in that case, for sure, we have to do better.

Where are Chelsea at, at the moment?

They told me this morning that before today's game, we had exactly the same points as last year, after eight games. Dropping points today, I think we are still in October. We need to improve many things and see where we are in March, April, May and then decide.

It's now eight points dropped from winning positions at home this season. Is that a concern and what would you put that down to?

It's always, you know, we are always looking for a reason why, when something is not working well. But again, we try always to analyse game by game. I think the last defeat at home in the Premier League was Brighton. Again, with a red card, that is much more difficult. And today, for sure, we can avoid that. But it's something that we probably need to do better.

You seemed to just struggle to create chances today...

Absolutely. Again, I think we were not good enough. Lack of creativity. We didn't create a lot, apart from the goal probably. And we struggled. Also, I think, you know, we need to perform. We need our players to perform 100%. And even with 1-0, we lost some duels, we lost some second balls. And against this team, you need to win that.

Is part of the frustration for you, or confusion, that the team played so well against Liverpool in the last Premier League game?

For sure, if you want to be there, you need consistency. Something that winning four in a row, and today probably you can show that. But because we lost points, we didn't show that. If we can have that level and this level, probably it's something that we need. Probably it's better something in between. Consistency is always in the same way, then like this. But I think overall, since we started, we performed much better compared to the game.

Were the team panicking with all of the crosses they put in?

No, when we arrived in a certain area of the pitch, we crossed because we expected to have four or five players inside the box. Today when we crossed, we had players inside the box, but probably the quality of the cross was not the best one. But I think we scored many goals from crosses. The last one we scored I think was Benfica game, the cross from Pedro [Neto], and Garna was second post and then was on goal, but the goal came from there. So probably today was more about the quality of the cross of the players that were inside the box.

Why has Joao Pedro's form dipped?

No, I think Joao is not training every day because he's managing a little bit himself from the injury problem. Moi [Caicedo] is exactly the same, Enzo [Fernandez] is exactly the same. We have four or five players that unfortunately, because of some problems, they cannot work every day and they try to make the effort to play the game. So Joao in some games has been better, today he struggled a little bit. But today I think overall all the players struggled today, so it's not just about Joao.