Enzo Maresca was hoping that the student would become the teacher in his second head-to-head with former mentor Pep Guardola this Premier League season.
Instead, Manchester City overcame an early concession to sweep the season series from Chelsea with a 2-1 win at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday.
There was quite a gulf between the teams when City won 4-2 in Week 1, and Maresca deserves credit for how far his team has come this season as well as their performance on Saturday.
But Noni Madueke’s early goal was Chelsea’s only route to the score board, as Josko Gvardiol and Erling Haaland steered City back ahead of Chelsea in the game and then on the table.
Enzo Maresca reaction — Chelsea manager on Sanchez, failure to score second goal in loss at Manchester City
On not scoring a second goal: “The game started very well for us. We scored first. We could’ve scored the second one two or three times. That would’ve changed the game. Against this team, these players, it can change at any moment.”
“We were there. After we scored the first one, we could’ve scored the second. The team was there. Unfortunately we conceded for 1-1 and then the second half.”
On Robert Sanchez’s performance: “In this moment it’s a bit of a mix. Robert, the good thing he’s the first one who knows he has to do better. .... [He will keep] working hard every day and for sure he’s going to do better. With Robert it is what it is in this moment but first he knows he has to do better.”
On team improvement over the season: “We are making progress. For me, we are better than one month, two months ago. These kind of moments will make us better and better. We’ll see where we are in the end.”
How was Chelsea’s mentality at 1-0? “We need to do many things better but also playing the way we played, we scored the first one and could’ve s scored the second. If we’re able to do that, the game could’ve changed. ... The team was quite good even at 1-1. We knew coming here we were going to concede chances to the players. You’re aggressive and you leave Haaland 1v1 with your defenders, it’s going to be dangeorus.”