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Enzo Maresca has told his Chelsea players to continue to shut out external noise after they secured a second Premier League win of the season with a 1-0 victory at Bournemouth.
The Blues have remained in the headlines during the September international break after reports emerged of a rift between co-owners Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali.
It is the latest off-field problem for Maresca to handle after he fielded various questions over the future of several players during a busy summer of transfer activity.
A hard-fought victory at Bournemouth moved Chelsea on to seven points out of a possible 12 but Maresca has warned the squad to ignore the pitfalls of reading social media.
“I said the other day in the press conference, it (results) is the only thing that we can control so we try to do our best,” Maresca explained.
“The players, they try to do their best on the pitch for sure because (the) social network…they can read and see things, but I told them it is not something we can do.
“We just try to prepare our games in the best way and the most important thing that we can learn is in this type of game, you need something different and not only the tactical part.
“You need something inside, you need to win duels and all the games are different. Probably the Palace game we deserve to win, but it is football, we didn’t win.
“We were more or less there (at Bournemouth) and in the end we win. The important thing is we continue to build something important and understand things.”
Chelsea were involved in a Premier League record on Saturday after referee Anthony Taylor handled out 14 yellow cards.
Cole Palmer cut a frustrated figure throughout the clash at Vitality Stadium and was fouled four times, two of which resulted in cautions for Ryan Christie and Lewis Cook.
Maresca admitted: “This kind of player, they are going to always get this.
“Cook was marking him 95 minutes man-to-man – or 95 minutes maybe not because after we put him wide – but he had man-to-man all the game and it’s not easy for Cole.
“It’s not easy for any player. The same thing happened with Marc (Cucurella) with (Antoine) Semenyo, he was following him everywhere so it was not easy, but you have to find different solutions.
“At the end if you want to win games and do something important, you need to understand how to win games.
“The way to win this game, you have to finish the game with the shirt dirty and you have to probably finish the game with (a) yellow card because there were many yellow cards, but this type of game requires this type of thing.”
As in the 6-2 success at Wolves, Maresca masterminded Chelsea’s win with the introduction of a substitute.
Jadon Sancho and Christopher Nkunku were sent on in the second half and combined for the winner in the 86th minute.
“I said to the players that they are not going to play every game. The only thing they can do is go inside for five minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 45 minutes and give everything,” Maresa insisted.
“The moment they go inside and don’t give everything, probably the next game they are not going to have five, or 10, or the 15 minutes.”
