With two lively wingers, in Madueke and Pedro Neto, Chelsea briefly looked a force, Brighton stretched and confused by a team playing almost as two split contingents of five, one raiding foreign territory and one protecting ensuring safety at home.
With the goal of the Premier League season so far, Kaoru Mitoma inspired Brighton to victory here at the Amex for the second time in a week, and left Maresca looking on enviously as his twin crises - of results and forward options - deepened on the worst night of his reign.
There was a time not long ago when a Brighton player doing something even half this good would prompt a £60million bid from Chelsea almost by default.
They had not seen their side win here in three months, before two London buses turned up six days apart, carrying Maresca’s sorry side.
By means fair, Chelsea were again pathetically toothless in attack, outdoing themselves by failing to muster a single shot on target across 90 minutes, a grim reduction on Saturday’s one.
