Why Enzo Maresca lost his cool as Chelsea forced into £20m transfer rethink in Lincoln City win

A League One side in the third round of the Carabao Cup. Sounds rather straightforward, doesn’t it? But the truth is, these cup ties are rarely that.

Enzo Maresca summed it up pretty well on Monday morning, about 33-or-so hours before kick-off: "These are the games that worry me most, because you can slip very easily in these kinds of games. Football is full of these kinds of games and I am very worried about that."

The Chelsea head coach drilled it into his players that this was not going to be easy. He mentally prepared - or at least tried - the starting line-up for what was coming their way from Lincoln City at the LNER Stadium.

A hostile atmosphere, balls into the box whether it was from a set-piece or a long throw-in and opposition players who were playing the biggest game of their career. Yet Chelsea’s players looked surprised at what they were up against. In the first-half, anyway.

"Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely, absolutely, absolutely," five times Maresca said the same word when asked if there were ‘angry words’ said at half-time, with Chelsea trailing by a goal to nil. “No, because we prepared the game thinking exactly in the way it was in the first-half, and sometimes it’s not about desire, it’s about winning the second ball, but it’s also about experience.

"Jamie Gittens never played against League One [teams], these kinds of games. Jorrel [Hato] never played this kind of game. This kind of game, you have to play in a different way, you have to play in a different way. It’s more about desire, and we struggled in the first-half."

Whatever Maresca said, or how angry he was, at half-time, we will never know. What we do know, though, is that Chelsea looked a different side coming out from the break.

A three-minute period saw the Blues turn the game on its head and silence the home supporters. For a brief period, anyway, because the home fans were brilliant throughout the evening when it came to creating a big noise.

Tyrique George, out of nowhere, thundered in the equaliser for the visitors. A snap-shot, really, from the 19-year-old left the Lincoln goalkeeper with no chance.

George was then on hand to set Facundo Buonanotte up for the second goal. The Argentine played a one-two with his new teammate and coolly slotted the ball into the back of the net for his first goal since signing on loan from Brighton in the summer.

That proved to be enough for Chelsea, yet there are a few negative talking points doing the rounds online. One of them being Filip Jorgensen.

Signed for around £20million in the summer of 2024, we are yet to see the best of the Danish goalkeeper. He has of course played understudy to Robert Sanchez throughout his time at Stamford Bridge, but he has racked up 26 appearances in total for the Blues.

It felt like an enormous backwards step for Jorgensen, who would have gone into the match knowing he had the opportunity to make a bit of a statement after Sanchez was shown a silly red card in Saturday evening’s loss to Manchester United. A good performance in Lincoln, and who knows, perhaps Jorgensen could have made a real claim to Maresca.

Lincoln were determined to get the ball into the Chelsea box as often as possible and when Jorgensen made a bit of a hash of a cross early in the match, the hosts were enthused. The Danish shot-stopper never got to grips with the direct approach from the Imps and looked like an accident waiting to happen all evening-long.

"I think that, I don't know how many balls they put inside the box tonight, you know, throw-ins, free-kick, cross, so I think it was not easy for any goalkeepers, to be honest," Maresca said when asked about his goalkeeper's performance. "And I think overall, even, you know, we conceded against Brentford in extra time from throw-ins, it's not easy, it's not easy because they bring so many players inside the box, they try to create chaos around the goalkeepers, so you cannot move, you cannot go out, you cannot catch the ball, it's difficult.

And also, you know, for Filip, I think it was the first game of the season, so not easy, but at the end, again, we won the game, I was very worried about this game.

Jorgensen was someone brought in with Chelsea believing he could compete with Sanchez for the No.1 spot. For all of Sanchez’s critics, he looks twice the goalkeeper at this moment in time.

Sanchez served his one-match suspension in Lincoln on Tuesday and is expected to return to his position at Stamford Bridge on Saturday afternoon as the Blues welcome his former club Brighton to town. Chelsea will be hoping the win against Lincoln - albeit one where they were very much expected to come out victorious - will kickstart a little something after a dip in recent weeks.