Maresca's Scathing Verdict: Why Chelsea's "Not Good Enough" After Sunderland Shock

Alejandro Garnacho netted his maiden goal for Chelsea to fire the hosts into a lead before Sunderland mounted a comeback to walk out of Stamford Bridge with a 2-1 win. With yet another setback, Chelsea has lost three of their last five fixtures and slumped to ninth in the Premier League table, while Sunderland has jumped to second.

While struggling with inconsistency and already dropping 13 points from nine games, Chelsea finds itself in a tough spot. In contrast, Chelsea has fared well in European competition, notching back-to-back wins over Benfica and Ajax while scoring seven goals in the UEFA Champions League.

Following their recent home defeat against Sunderland, Maresca was visibly frustrated and said at a press conference, as quoted from Goal.com, "I think we were not good enough in general. We know that in the moment you drop a little, we drop a little bit; you can lose points against any team in the Premier League. That is so difficult."

Maresca weighed in on the lack of impact his substitutes had on the pitch and on Sunderland's long throws, which caused plenty of problems, especially inside the box.

"No, it's always difficult for the ones that they go inside. At least they tried. But again, overall, we were not good enough. It is always difficult to just bring seven or eight players inside the box. Almost inside the six-yard box. It is difficult to deal with that. We tried to prepare for that, but it can happen," Maresca added.

Garnacho drew the first blood and handed the hosts a 1-0 lead in the first four minutes, the fastest for Chelsea in the ongoing season.

However, Maresca was far from pleased with the overall performance and said, "Yeah, absolutely. We started well with the goal, but even with that, the feeling was that we were losing, in terms of physicality, duels, second balls, these kinds of things. Against these teams, it is always dangerous. It is just that we were not good enough. When you are not good enough, you can drop points against any team."

- ANI