Enzo Maresca knew what he was talking about, then: Chelsea are some distance from being title challengers.
The Blues have now gone four Premier League matches without a victory following Saturday’s draw at Selhurst Park.
We’ll rattle through the main Fantasy Premier League (FPL) talking points from this match in our next Scout Notes.
Liverpool v Man Utd is ON after safety meetings
MARESCA ON JACKSON
The ‘Miss Jackson’ gags are back in vogue after Nicolas Jackson (£8.1m) extended his barren run to one goal in seven Gameweeks.
Three of his four shots were very presentable chances: a skewed volley from a set piece, an outside-of-the -foot effort that crept wide and a 70th-minute attempt from a narrower angle that fizzed across goal. He wasn’t a million miles away with two of them, while his all-round play was very decent.
He certainly brings more to the side than Christopher Nkunku (£5.8m), as Gameweek 19 showed. With the schedule easing, it doesn’t seem like there’s much chance of Nkunku making another league start at Jackson’s expense in the short term.
All-round play doesn’t get you points in FPL, of course. Anyone plumping for Jackson over Alexander Isak (£9.2m) in, say, Gameweek 14 is 51 points worse off.
“For a striker, sometimes all the chances they score and sometimes they have chances and don’t score. The important thing is that Nico today had two or three clear chances – so that means he is there, he is ready and hopefully next time he can be a little bit more lucky. But overall, I think Nico did a good game today.” – Enzo Maresca on Nicolas Jackson
Cole Palmer (£11.4m) kept things ticking over with another goal, his 20th return of 2024/25. He should have had an assist to his name too (thanks to Jackson), with five chances created unbeaten by anyone in the Premier League on Saturday.
His goal was a peach, owing much to Jadon Sancho‘s (£6.2m) fine work down the left.
In Gameweek 21, and in three of the next four matches, Palmer is back on home soil – where he is typically more explosive. Bournemouth may be trickier than the fixture ticker suggests, however, as the Cherries have conceded just four goals in their last seven league matches. The Gameweek 21 captaincy debate will be an interesting one, with Mohamed Salah (£13.6m) away at Forest.
£4.0M CHELSEA DEFENDER
The Chelsea starting XI was largely as expected, with the second string canned following their poor showing at Ipswich.
The one surprise was the inclusion of Josh Acheampong (£4.0m). The rookie defender came in at centre-half alongside Levi Colwill (£4.6m), performing well. A late Jean-Philippe Mateta (£7.2m) leveller deprived him of a debut clean sheet, while Acheampong even came close to scoring, nodding one corner wide.
Will he continue to start going forward? Maresca’s comments below about “right moments” and “slowing down” cast that in some doubt. It’s also worth pointing out (thanks to Tom J for the stat) that he lost all five of his aerial duels, so it wasn’t an unblemished centre-half performance.
“For me, all the players were good today, but if I have to decide for one, I think for sure Josh was our best player, because of the age, because it was the first game.
“Josh, for me, can be a top player for this club but he needs the right path, the right moment. With young players you have to decide in which moment. We decided today because we saw that he is ready and today I think he showed how good he is.
“Now, again because of his age, he has to slow down, work hard and take the next chance.” – Enzo Maresca
The Chelsea boss also didn’t rule out moving for another centre-half in January.
“We knew already knew Josh was good enough but probably with Wes [Fofana] and Benoit [Badiashile] injuries, we will see if something is going to happen.” – Enzo Maresca on the transfer window
PALACE’S IMPROVEMENT CONTINUES
It’s now just two defeats in 12 league games for Palace – and what a run they have coming up:
The Eagles were second-best in the first half – even Oliver Glasner admitted as much – but much better after the break.
Mateta’s underlying stats, as well as his goal count, haven’t been great this season. Saturday’s strike, courtesy of some unselfish work from Eberechi Eze (£6.6m), was only his fifth goal in 2024/25.
He has at least seemingly seen off the challenge of Eddie Nketiah (£5.9m) of late, starting every match since Gameweek 8. He also scored a brace against his next opponents, Leicester City, earlier in the campaign. Perhaps this can kickstart another purple patch: remember last season, he had scored three in 22 games before a 13-goal streak in the final third of 2023/24.
Meanwhile, Daniel Munoz (£4.7m) was, once again, ridiculously advanced. This time it wasn’t shots he was registering but key passes. There were four in all, including a huge chance created for Eze that the midfielder spurned.
“We know when we play with Ismaila Sarr and Daniel Munoz, and you always see the stats, they are runners, they run and run and run and they’re sprinting and sprinting. They can play with such a high intensity. Very direct, that we know, and especially we know then when we switch the play against the back four we have a two v one.” – Oliver Glasner
Ismaila Sarr (£5.9m) will wish Eze hadn’t squared the ball to Mateta for the equaliser. Had Eze shot and scored, Sarr would have collected the assist for his superb through-ball.
This match ended with Sarr having zero shots to Eze’s four. Over the last three Gameweeks, in fact, the trigger-happy Eze has had 10 more attempts than his fellow attacking midfielder (14-4).
