Maresca may have lost Chelsea’s fans, but he has clearly not lost the players
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6294389/2025/04/21/Chelsea-fulham-maresca-fans-players/
Craven Cottage’s quaint layout makes it a particularly awkward venue for a beleaguered manager.
Getting from the dressing room to the dugout requires a long diagonal walk across the pitch in front of the Putney End, in which the away supporters are housed. It can be a lonely journey for a visiting coach if things are going wrong, and Enzo Maresca’s stony-faced trudge while trailing 1-0 at half-time against Fulham on Sunday was about as uncomfortable as it gets.
At the sight of the Chelsea head coach striding across their collective field of vision, a chorus of boos rose in both anger and volume within Chelsea’s away fans, before coalescing into very audible chants of, “W****r”. To those tracking the steady degradation of Maresca’s standing among supporters in recent months, it felt like a clear point of no return.
Around an hour later, Maresca made the same walk as a winner. He opted not to accompany his team to soak in the jubilation sparked by Chelsea’s unexpected late comeback to beat Fulham 2-1. “It was a moment for the players,” the Italian said in his post-match press conference. “They deserved to share that moment with the fans. That’s the reason I left the pitch immediately.”
Presuming he heard the half-time chants, it was probably the correct call. Maresca’s presence in the celebrations was not missed, and at this stage, it feels likely that many Chelsea supporters will never warm to him, even if he manages to deliver Champions League qualification and lift the Conference League at the end of May.
That best-case scenario is looking more possible thanks to the two brilliant finishes from Tyrique George and Pedro Neto that sank Fulham on Sunday and provided the latest signs that while Maresca may have lost the fans, he has not lost the dressing room.
Pedro Neto celebrates scoring the winner (Bryn Lennon/Getty Images)
Chelsea were awful in the first 45 minutes, their passive pressing and clunky mechanical passing ceding the initiative to a forceful Fulham before giving up a startlingly soft goal. Taken together with midweek humiliation against Legia Warsaw at Stamford Bridge, it raised the grim notion that this young, vastly expensive squad had tuned out their head coach.
But that had not been the abiding impression of last weekend’s dispiriting 2-2 home draw against Ipswich Town. Chelsea started that game reasonably well, then conceded two sloppy first-half goals that paralysed them amid the audible frustration of the home crowd, before gathering themselves sufficiently to snatch a point (which would have been all three were it not for the trailing glove of Alex Palmer denying Enzo Fernandez in the final seconds).
Faced with a similar choice of accepting a defeat that might have dealt a death blow to their Champions League qualification hopes or fighting back, Chelsea again picked the latter option. Maresca’s double half-time substitution of Reece James and Noni Madueke for Malo Gusto and Jadon Sancho tweaked the balance of the right side without fundamentally altering the system or style of play that has alienated so many supporters.
The biggest change was mindset. Chelsea finally managed to put Fulham under sustained pressure that did not abate even when Maresca made his boldest decision of all: to replace the toiling Nicolas Jackson with Cobham graduate George in the 78th minute. Christopher Nkunku was nowhere to be found, due to what the Italian subsequently cited as a “technical decision”.
Introducing George paid off handsomely inside five minutes and when Neto, switched from the left to the right flank at half-time, lashed in a stoppage-time winner, the wild celebrations in front of the visiting dugout spoke to the sense of togetherness that has endured through Chelsea’s awful run of form. There could be no picturebook player/coach embrace because Maresca ran along the touchline to pump his fists in the direction of the away fans, and was booked for his trouble.
Will it change anything? Chelsea still have all the same problems they had before Neto’s shot found the net. Cole Palmer remains a shadow of the player who wrecked Premier League defences for 18 months. Jackson is struggling to get shots, never mind goals. The midfield is too easily played through, defensive resistance is brittle and the mindless devotion to Maresca’s choreographed possession can make them fatally predictable as well as utterly unwatchable.
Tyrique George got Chelsea’s first (Bryn Lennon/Getty Images)
It is easy to imagine Chelsea finding themselves getting ‘Moyes-ed’ by a stubborn Everton at Stamford Bridge next weekend, prompting fresh waves of supporter anger to bubble to the surface. Beyond that lies a four-game run-in that no top-five contender would choose: Liverpool at home, Newcastle United away, Manchester United at home, Nottingham Forest away.
But there is also a compelling symmetry to the fact that a 2-1 comeback win for Fulham at Stamford Bridge on Boxing Day kicked off all of this Chelsea misery. Could avenging that particular defeat be enough to bring about a bigger vibe shift?
Maresca will not win any new admirers among the fanbase for his post-match assertion that this is “already a good season and can become very good if we finish in a Champions League spot”. That may have been more for the benefit of his players, many of whom have worn the pressure of this top-five race very openly in recent weeks.
They do not appear to have given up on Maresca, and at the very least, there is a prideful nature and nascent spirit within this squad, whatever its flaws. It will take more than that to bring Champions League football back to Stamford Bridge next season but Chelsea found fresh hope at Craven Cottage, and hope is where it starts.
