Maresca thrilled to see Chelsea share attacking burden in Burnley win

Enzo Maresca says he would rather have multiple Chelsea players contributing to goals, rather than a 40-goal striker, after their 2-0 win away at Burnley.

Goals in either half from Pedro Neto and Enzo Fernandez saw Chelsea to their fifth win in the last six Premier League outings, and third top-flight victory in a row without conceding for the first time since March 2022.

The triumph at Turf Moor also helped Maresca's side climb to second in the table before Saturday's later action, now just three points behind leaders Arsenal, who host rivals Tottenham on Sunday.

Joao Pedro and Liam Delap both proved ineffective in the victory, though substitute Marc Guiu teed up Fernandez's late finish.

And Maresca insists his preference remains Chelsea sharing the attacking burden, rather than focusing on goals from one source.

"We work on some patterns for sure. I prefer the five players at the front to score 10 to 12 goals rather than have a striker to score 40 goals," the Chelsea boss said at his post-match press conference. 

"I like the wingers scoring, giving assists like Jamie [Gittens] did. We work on some patterns to create some chances for attacking players."

Gittens set up Neto's headed opener and now has four assists in his last four starts in all competitions for Chelsea – excluding the Club World Cup, he has the most assists for the Blues this season (four).

Neto has also been involved in five goals across his last five league appearances for Chelsea (three goals, two assists), scoring as many goals this term (four in 12) as he did in the entirety of last season (four in 35).

The Portugal winger only managed more in a Premier League campaign in 2020-21 for Wolves (five in 31), and his increased output has taken some pressure away from the returning Delap.

Having joined from Ipswich Town in the last transfer window, Delap has still yet to score his first Premier League goal for Chelsea, though he missed a large chunk of games with a hamstring issue.

"Be patient, no doubt the goal will arrive," Maresca said of Delap. "Liam is the type of striker that has defenders always worried."

Chelsea also opted to leave Moises Caicedo on the bench, with Andrey Santos playing the full 90 minutes as Maresca protected his key midfielder with a rest.

"I won't do it any more, trust me," Maresca responded when asked about Caicedo's absence.

"Usually with us, Andrey goes higher up because we have Moi, but we needed to find a solution. He was very good. Also, Jamie Gittens was very good."

Burnley, meanwhile, have now lost five of their last seven league matches and face an uphill battle to avoid relegation.

"I wasn't looking for much more if I'm being honest," Burnley boss Scott Parker told BBC’s Match of the Day.

"I’d have loved to have reproduced the first half performance. We stayed in the game. At times it was difficult, but like I said, overall, from where we were last week to today, we've improved massively. I'm happy with the performance, but I say that lightly because we didn't get the result.

"I'm not being negative in any way. We understand the fine margins in this division are going to be massive. We will improve that. We've got an unbelievable group that keeps improving, and I can see that."