Jens Lehmann has criticised Enzo Maresca’s recent message to Filip Jorgensen about avoiding long balls and is confident the Chelsea head coach will ‘regret’ what he said in the future.
Summer signing Jorgensen took over from Robert Sanchez as Chelsea’s first-choice goalkeeper earlier this month and has started the club’s last four matches in the Premier League.
And while Jorgensen’s first showings in a Chelsea shirt have been shaky to say the least, Maresca has confirmed that he intends to stick with the 22-year-old for the time being.
A clean sheet in the Blues’ rampant 4-0 win over Southampton will have done Jorgensen’s confidence the world of good on Tuesday night and the youngster will hope for a similar result this weekend against Leicester.
However, there were several occasions across the 90 minutes at Stamford Bridge when Chelsea’s home support voiced their frustrations with the Dane’s insistence on playing short passes out from the back.
But facing the media after the victory, Maresca revealed that Jorgensen was simply ‘following the plan’ and carrying out the instructions he had given him in the build-up.
‘My message to Filip was, “If you play long balls, I will change you”, and he was just doing what I said to him,’ Maresca told reporters.
‘It’s difficult for Filip, and it’s difficult for Robert [Sanchez] too. All the ‘keepers, they are just following the plan.’
When informed of Maresca’s remarks while appearing as a guest on talkSPORT, ex-Arsenal and Germany goalkeeper Lehmann was taken aback.
‘I was surprised that the Chelsea coach used that phrase,’ Lehmann – an integral member of Arsenal’s fabled Invincibles side – responded.
‘To be honest, probably he will regret that because it’s not about playing a certain style. It’s about winning a game.’
While Lehmann isn’t completely opposed to teams playing it out from the back, he suggested Maresca’s comments were a sign that the Italian ‘does not understand’ the role of goalkeepers.
‘Sometimes I’m a fan of it when you have space and when there’s a need for it,’ he added.
‘But what the manager says, if I was his superior I would tell him, “You have to understand football in a different way because we are not here to play a different style, we are here for Chelsea club, to win games”.
‘They won that game but they haven’t won every game. That’s probably why they’re not up to it right now, to win a trophy this year. They’re still fighting to get into the top four.’
Lehmann believes Liverpool – under both Arne Slot and Jurgen Klopp – are the ‘exception’ when it comes to Premier League managers not understanding goalkeeping ‘as a complete product’.
‘When you look at these managers right now, sometimes they don’t really understand football in total, as a complete product,’ he went on.
‘Particularly, they do not understand the role of the goalkeepers, but that goes for most of the guys.
‘There is an exception right now at Liverpool and that’s why there are on topand when Jurgen Klopp was there, he understood it as well, a little bit more than others I would say.
‘I was at the Real Madrid versus Manchester City game last week and I like the ‘keeper [Ederson] but sometimes I still have a feeling that even the best coach in the world, Pep Guardiola, does not really know what his goalkeeper does and doesn’t have to do, particularly in collaboration with his defence.’
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