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On the surface level, Chelsea's 2-1 defeat in Bergamo on Tuesday had the look of one inflicted on them by Enzo Maresca making the wrong adjustments at the back end of the pitch. A midfield of right backs and a back four that had been forced into too many changes buckled, Charles De Ketelaere went charging up the gut and what once seemed to be a vital win in an archetypal tough place to go on the continent became a fifth straight road defeat in the Champions League for Chelsea.

It need not have been that way. When Reece James powered to the byline to cross for Joao Pedro, Chelsea were entitled to feel that their foothold in the game was well earned. They had quelled the early threat of Atalanta passes in behind their full back and had built momentum. This was hardly the Blues at their best but they were in the ascendancy. All they needed to do was push on from their 25th minute lead.

Instead, it wasn't until 25 minutes later that Chelsea registered another shot. In that time they got into the Atalanta penalty area on four separate occasions. None of those involved Joao Pedro, who was next spotted in the box again in the 91st minute as the visitors desperately chased parity. You couldn't fault the Brazilian's commitment to come back, to drop into space and help build attacks but when Chelsea needed focal points through which to extend their lead, they lacked one.

Unfortunately that has been too common a story for Chelsea this season. Naturally their attack is not what it was in 2024-25 because they have largely not had any version of Cole Palmer, let alone the one at the peak of his powers early last season who seemed capable of firing a one man title challenge. Nor have they often had Liam Delap, though when he has actually taken the field this season the Chelsea No.9 has not offered overwhelming evidence that he was ready to make the leap from the bar room brawl at the bottom end of the Premier League to the more rarified air that his new employers occupy.

Nor, indeed, did they have the divisive figure of Nicolas Jackson, whose ill-discipline and occasionally wayward finishing masked a striker who was very good at getting shots and penalty box touches. Last season the now Bayern Munich loanee averaged 0.51 non-penalty expected goals per 90 starting minutes in the Premier League. Joao Pedro and Delap might have bettered him in raw output but more predictive metrics suggested that Jackson would be better placed to get the ball in dangerous areas.

He was not the only player to depart in last summer who was very adept at finding the ball in the penalty area. In total Chelsea have lopped off about five touches in the box from their tally of 31.7 per Premier League game last season. Where those have gone is fairly straightforward. Jackson, Noni Madueke and Jadon Sancho took them when they walked out the door. Add those three to Palmer and you have a quartet that would have frequently started Premier League games, combining for an average of 25.4 penalty box touches per 90 minutes as starters. By the same criteria last night's front four of Fernandez, Joao Pedro, Jamie Gittens and Pedro Neto average 17.4. 

In the case of each player who left the squad there were understandable factors to defend Chelsea's decision-making progress, not least the lack of end product. This season's figures include one midfielder in Fernandez, who, while developing well in the final third, is still developing and another in Pedro who was bought as much to provide cover for Palmer as to lead the line. Still, whatever the caveats, that is a sizeable amount of penalty box pressure to lose.

That much was apparent against Atalanta. For 90 minutes Maresca's side could get the ball close to where they wanted to go without taking the final step. In terms of attacking third touches they bettered their opponent by a fair margin, 155 to 115. Go to the danger zone and the story changes to one that slightly favors Atalanta, 24 to 22. La Dea would end this game nine shots in the box to Chelsea's six, plenty of more of them asking real questions of the defense too.

Maresca's view was that Gianluca Scamacca's equaliser had brought out the worst qualities in his side, who had suddenly found themselves more error prone as Atalanta revived the atmosphere that Chelsea had done such a fine job of quelling. "After the goal we conceded, we lost a little bit of control of the game," he said. "In the first half, we scored the goal, we conceded something, but also we created some chances. In the second half, I think we had two good chances to score the second one. And then again, after we conceded the 1-1 [goal], we lost a little bit of control of the game, and then we conceded the second one."

And yet the control that the visitors did have before they were pegged back was a particularly ineffective type when they couldn't apply it everywhere on the pitch. A double effort by James was their most notable moment of cutting through but there was little to have Atalanta fearing that a more open game might lead to them getting a few more smashed past them. Given there was so little sustained threat on their goal, why wouldn't the Italians start creeping forward in much the same fashion that Sunderland had when they earned the same result for themselves earlier this season.

None of this is impossible for Maresca to address. Palmer is not necessarily in the highest echelon when it comes to penalty box touches but matters come a little more naturally to him in those areas than they do Fernandez, who it must be noted has developed excellently when it comes to his late scoring darts into the penalty area. Palmer's absence on Tuesday night was part of Chelsea's careful plan to gradually reintegrate their No.10 into the first team. Perhaps that approach was vindicated in the most frustrating way last night. If this is how hard things can be without their star playmaker, there is nothing worse than gambling with his fitness.

There were other adjustments Maresca could have made though. At just 18 years of age Estevao is already very good at some of the very hard parts of attacking and averages more touches in the box this Premier League season than anyone who has played over 400 minutes and is not named Noni Madueke or Jeremy Doku. Maresca indicated that the Brazilian could have entered the fray had it not been for the eye injury suffered when Scamacca's stray boot connected with Wesley Fofana. The man he did turn to to freshen up the attack, Alejandro Garnacho, is another who can get the ball into prime spaces though he has still yet to kick his addiction to long range shots when there are better options ahead of him.

Whoever is in the XI this can still be a Chelsea attack to fear. It is barely more than a fortnight since they danced around flailing Barcelona limbs. It is inevitable that young teams like this one will need to learn how to do so more consistently and the very real prospect that this team will now finish outside the top eight of the league phase means two more games in which to develop the right habits. "If we want to try to finish top eight, we need to win both," said Maresca. "Otherwise, we try to play the play-off and then go to the next round."

More games might afford more opportunities for Chelsea to really click, as they have been so temptingly close to on numerous occasions this season. And that team at full strength could well make these questions of their ability to manufacture penalty box touches look daft indeed, vindicating some recruitment decisions that look rather curious in hindsight. For now, however, it is hard to shake the sense that the reforging of their attack in the summer has given Maresca's side a smidge less ooomph and that that is placing pressure on a defense that buckled in Bergamo.