Ahead of Chelsea's shock 2-1 defeat at home against Sunderland in the Premier League last weekend, Maresca opened up on his team's vulnerability when it comes to defending long throw-ins. The Italian coach had explained why he does not prefer to deploy such tactics himself, as he told reporters: "Knowing that at this moment most teams in the Premier League - but also in other leagues - are using long throws, we try to find solutions and learn how we can deal with that. It’s difficult. Most of the long throws go inside the six-yard box, so it’s complicated. We have reviewed the goal Brentford scored against us not only this week, because we are playing Sunderland, but other teams we faced after Brentford who use a long throw.
"If we don’t do it, it’s probably because I don’t like it, but you need to evolve in football, so probably one day I will do it. In this moment, we don’t plan to play with throw-ins, but it’s a matter of evolution and probably one day we will. If clubs do it, it’s because they think it’s good to do. Long throw-ins now are more or less like ten or 15 years in England – and Liam’s dad was the king of long throw-ins! In case we decide to go for long throw-ins, we will take out Liam and bring on his dad."
Chelsea conceded to a long Sunderland throw and this led to Maresca commenting: "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 that but it can happen."
