How long will the inquest into Chelsea’s latest Premier League slip-up against Brentford run before someone asks the big question: why did Enzo Maresca wait until the 77th minute to bring on his top Premier League goalscorer of 2025?
No, not Cole Palmer, introduced for Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall just shy of the hour mark.
Not Pedro Neto, brought on for Noni Madueke at the same time.
Definitely not Nicolas Jackson, who made only his second Premier League appearance after a two-month injury layoff when he replaced Christopher Nkunku at half-time.
The correct answer is, of course, Marc Cucurella. The roving left-back represented Maresca’s last attacking roll of the dice in the 0-0 draw when he came on for Reece James with 13 minutes left.
Given that Chelsea have played 12 Premier League games in 2025, the Spaniard’s three goals since the turn of the year should be nowhere near enough to distinguish him as the most consistent attacking match-winner in the squad over that span, yet they are.
Palmer has found the net only twice in 2025, the latest on January 14. His struggles have understandably garnered the most headlines but Chelsea’s attacking problems are far bigger.
Madueke also has two Premier League goals to his name since the beginning of January, but none since tapping into an empty net in the third minute against Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium on January 25 (largely because of a significant injury absence).
Pedro Neto and Enzo Fernandez are the only two other players in Maresca’s squad who have scored more than once since the turn of the year.
Jackson’s failure to pass that threshold makes sense in light of his injury absence, though his scoring drought already stood at eight Premier League matches before his hamstring gave way in early February.
Jackson failed to score against Brentford (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
The inability of Jadon Sancho (goalless since December 8) and Christopher Nkunku (one league goal in 2025) to clear such a low bar is harder to justify, but easy to explain when observing them on the pitch.
Sancho, in fairness, has at least responded to the repeated urging of his team-mates and Maresca by trying to shoot more often in recent weeks.
The problem is that on the relatively rare occasions when he manages to overcome his lack of explosive speed or overwhelming strength to create an advantage against his defender with skill, his attempts at goal lack conviction. At the Gtech Stadium, his only effort in the second half trickled well wide of Mark Flekken’s post.
What more is there to say about Nkunku? Maresca’s post-match insistence that the Frenchman’s struggles are not down to a lack of effort felt as feeble and unconvincing as the sum of his contribution over 45 listless first-half minutes.
Everyone knows that Nkunku is not a natural No 9, but his apparent limitations in recent months go well beyond that. Can he press? Can he make runs? Can he protect the ball from any level of physical pressure? Can he combine with others?
Against Brentford, as for much of this season, the answer to all of the above was no, and the Frenchman’s limitations — whether due to a lack of effort or ability — caused visible frustration among his team-mates.
Nkunku has always been an unusual footballer: not a true striker, winger or No 10, but a hybrid connector who does his best work somewhere in between.
Last season’s pre-season injury that deprived him of the opportunity to become the hub of Mauricio Pochettino’s team will always be a sliding-doors moment, but it could not be clearer that his best position is away from Chelsea — and that in the meantime, Maresca cannot count on him to be a helpful force.
That would be a significant problem for Chelsea even if their other attackers were producing in line with expectations, but as things stand Nkunku’s frequent disappearing acts form only part of a broader crisis of production across Maresca’s front line.
Goals from Fernandez or Cucurella arriving late in the opposition box cannot save them forever, and did not against Brentford. Maresca’s response after the Brentford draw was to point out the fact that Chelsea are behind only Liverpool in expected goals (xG) this season.
Their average xG of 1.7 in their 12 league matches in 2025 is only a marginal dip on their average of 1.9 xG per game this season, and against Brentford they had the most shot attempts (21) without scoring in a Premier League away game since December 2017 against Everton at Goodison Park.
There is plenty of reason to believe that Chelsea’s numbers will rebound in a healthier direction now that Jackson and Madueke are fit enough to play around Palmer, and to make sure that Nkunku plays less.
Maresca and Palmer after their draw with Brentford (Eddie Keogh/Getty Images)
But they have only seven Premier League matches remaining, the final four of which are against Liverpool, Newcastle, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest. That is a small and perilous enough sample size to fear a continuation of this collective attacking slump.
If it continues, there will be plenty among the match-going Chelsea support who will lay the blame directly at the feet of Maresca and his insistence on patient, possession-focused football. Many of them could be heard chanting, “Attack, attack, attack” in the first half against Brentford and greeting a Madueke shot in the 34th minute with a sarcastic chorus of “We’ve had a shot”.
Even more consequentially, Chelsea’s chronic lack of attacking punch in recent weeks belies the reality that their margin for error in the race for Champions League qualification is exhausted. Only time will tell if being held to a goalless draw by Brentford will be regarded as a disastrous point, but there is no world in which it is an encouraging one.
Maresca will not care in the slightest who gets the goals in his team’s final seven Premier League games, as long as they arrive with frequency and volume. But if Cucurella is still Chelsea’s top league goalscorer of 2025 come the end of May, the club is highly unlikely to be returning to Europe’s elite club competition next season.
(Top photo: Marc Cucurella by Eddie Keogh via Getty Images)