Enzo Maresca Thread

[Ledg 639]

https://streamable.com/d5ak6b

His little dance after full-time. 🥺🥺🥺

[Strike 7,222]

The board got this appointment right 

[MoroccanBlue 5,312]

Crazy how we could lose 5 league matches on the bounce and we'd still be in a better position compared to this time last season. 

[Fernando 6,468]

21 hours ago, Strike said:

The board got this appointment right 

Yes but I still will not trust 100 percent with buys. 

Not every manager should get a say 100 percent on transfer. 

I Loved Conte and Tuchel, but some of their buys where disastrous. 

Obviously his input should be considered but there's a few select of managers in history that had this say in the past but in todays modern world I don't think that no longer works.  

[Strike 7,222]

23 hours ago, Fernando said:

Yes but I still will not trust 100 percent with buys. 

Not every manager should get a say 100 percent on transfer. 

I Loved Conte and Tuchel, but some of their buys where disastrous. 

Obviously his input should be considered but there's a few select of managers in history that had this say in the past but in todays modern world I don't think that no longer works.  

I agree. I dont think Maresca has that much say on transfers. Seems to be just working with whoever is bought

[NikkiCFC 7,968]

Remember people were hoping we would close the gap to City and Arsenal this season. Well, 1/3 of the season in, gap doesn't exist anymore. 

[Vesper 28,886]

Chelsea were questioned for Enzo Maresca appointment – six months on, those doubts have vanished

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5963037/2024/12/03/Chelsea-enzo-maresca-column/

Let’s start by turning back the clock.

Today — December 3 — marks the six-month anniversary of Chelsea officially announcing they had appointed Enzo Maresca as their new head coach. The choice inevitably sparked a lot of comments from the club’s fans on social media. Safe to say not a lot of it was upbeat.

Here is just a small indication of some of the things said about him:

• “Another moronic appointment by Chelsea and Todd Boehly. I can’t see Enzo Maresca even lasting the season.”
• “Out of his depth, no experience.”
• “Can’t wait to see Maresca sacked after one season because he’s been found out.”
• “This random will be sacked seven months in.”
• “To go from Tuchel to Maresca in four appointments is quite something. They have taken a massive risk. If this doesn’t work out it could turn toxic for them.”
• “Maresca signing a five-year deal when he will be gone in five months.”

Even some of the Stamford Bridge club’s former players weighed in with downbeat opinions of a man whose only previous experience as a manager had been one season at Leicester in the second-tier Championship a year ago — albeit winning promotion as champions — and a mere 14 games at Parma in that division’s Italian equivalent before being sacked in November 2021.

Speaking on The Obi One podcast, ex-Chelsea midfielder Mikel John Obi expressed his concerns: “I’m sure the Chelsea fans, they’ve been patient, but if we don’t start the season well, that is going to be a catastrophe. It will be a bad, bad decision from the owners and they will have to… I don’t know what they have to do because the fans will turn on them, and they will turn on them massively.”

Former Chelsea defender Robert Huth also suggested Maresca was a questionable appointment to follow Mauricio Pochettino, who got ditched after one season, and that it was an odd decision.

 

Chelsea and Maresca had a tough pre-season (Jason Mowry/Getty Images)

A bad pre-season, where they won just one of six warm-up games while conceding 13 goals, just made the noise even louder, especially against a backdrop of players being frozen out into a ‘bomb squad’ away from the first team.

Sky Sports pundit and former Liverpool and England defender Jamie Carragher was scathing in his criticism after Chelsea lost Maresca’s opening Premier League game to Manchester City. Speaking on Sky’s Monday Night Football show, he said: “Chelsea have just got to stop buying players, and players have got to stop signing for Chelsea. If I was a player (today), I don’t know why you would sign for Chelsea. There isn’t anything there. It’s not a young and exciting team.”

Fast forward from that to Sunday afternoon and the sight of Maresca leading his players on a lap of honour following a 3-0 home win against Aston Villa. The mood in the stands was buoyant, the crowd full of belief and appreciation.

In a short period, Maresca has built more of a bond with the fanbase than recent predecessors Graham Potter and Pochettino achieved. The fact he has made a deliberate attempt from day one to forge this, by going out of his way to acknowledge them, helps.

Getting good results is handy, too.

Chelsea are third in the Premier League table with an identical record to an Arsenal side strongly tipped to win the title before the campaign began — behind them only alphabetically. Yes, Liverpool are nine points clear in first but there was no obvious gap in quality when the sides met at Anfield in October, and Maresca’s side were perhaps a little unfortunate to lose 2-1 that day. Remarkably, defending four-times-in-a-row champions City are two points and two positions below them after losing four league games in a row.

It is still early days in Maresca’s tenure but he deserves a lot of credit for the job he has done so far and he’s certainly silenced the doubters. The fact people are even asking whether Chelsea are in the title race shows just how far ahead of schedule they are.

The 44-year-old Italian is the third permanent appointment the Todd Boehly-Clearlake consortium has made since buying the club in May 2022. Just going on Premier League form alone, he is off to a better start than Potter and Pochettino, although one should bear in mind the former did not have a pre-season to bed in due to replacing Thomas Tuchel in the September of the new regime’s first season.

Just look at the table below, which focuses on each manager’s opening 13 league games. Maresca is outperforming the other two on almost every metric.

First 13 Premier League games in charge

Managers	Wins	Draws	Losses	Goals for	Goals against	Points	Position
Maresca	7	4	2	26	14	25	3rd
Pochettino	4	4	5	22	20	16	10th
Potter	5	3	5	14	12	18	10th

Now, you could argue Maresca has benefitted from work that was done before his arrival, with key players such as Moises Caicedo and Nicolas Jackson having had a year to settle after their transfers to Chelsea. He also joined the club when the management structure above the head coach role was in place. Potter, by contrast, was lured from Brighton just over three months after the club were sold.

But it would be wrong to say Maresca has had it easy. There was a loud outcry in the summer over the size of the squad, plus his subsequent treatment of unwanted first-team players, telling them to train away from the main group. It may have been harsh but you have to say the team’s results on the pitch are proving him right.

The beginning of pre-season was also overshadowed by the emergence of a video in which Enzo Fernandez is singing a racist and discriminatory song with Argentina team-mates following their Copa America final win over Colombia in July. It threatened to split the dressing room and Maresca’s man-management skills were put to the test straight away. Fernandez has been eased back in, and was wearing the captain’s armband as he scored against Villa on Sunday.

 

Chelsea celebrate their latest Premier League win on Sunday (Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)

Just a month into the season, Maresca had to handle big headlines about the co-owners trying to go their separate ways and attempts to buy each other out. He did not let the uncertainty in the boardroom, which is still unresolved, affect the players either. Also, like the two men who had the job before him, Maresca is having to get used to not being able to call upon one of Chelsea’s best and most important players — Reece James — due to repeated injuries.

Not everything has been perfect.

Chelsea have not won any of their league matches this season against ‘big opposition’ in City (lost), Liverpool (lost), Arsenal (drew) and Manchester United (drew) — questions will definitely be asked if Maresca does not get off the mark in that regard away to fierce London rivals Tottenham on Sunday. A meek 2-0 exit at Newcastle in the Carabao Cup’s round of 16 was a disappointment too, while a record of three clean sheets from the 13 league games (Liverpool have a league-best seven) shows there is plenty of room for improvement defensively.

But the positives far outweigh the negatives.

Maresca has brought back the feel-good factor to Chelsea, and you do not hear many questioning his appointment now.

[Strike 7,222]

7 hours ago, NikkiCFC said:

Remember people were hoping we would close the gap to City and Arsenal this season. Well, 1/3 of the season in, gap doesn't exist anymore. 

Some of it to do with them dropping off

Still have the gap to Pool

[King Kante 1,492]

3 hours ago, Strike said:

Some of it to do with them dropping off

Still have the gap to Pool

Tbh, we are still a GK and RCB away from a league title. Personally, I suspect the Dippers to grind their way to a title and Arsenal to keep ahead. 3rd-4th feels about right for the profile of the squad currently. 

[Vesper 28,886]

3 hours ago, King Kante said:

Tbh, we are still a GK and RCB away from a league title. Personally, I suspect the Dippers to grind their way to a title and Arsenal to keep ahead. 3rd-4th feels about right for the profile of the squad currently. 

3rd or 4th with a squad with huge issues at GKer and CB would be astounding work by Maresca. 2nd would be out of this world.

Pool are (atm, especially with Real and Citeh's massive injury issues) the best team on the planet, IMHO, and they may strengthen in January. The only one who is close (I do not put Bayern or PSG or Inter up there at that level) are Barca, and they are a bit in the mud atm (but I am sure will turn it around). Pool (like us) need help at CB, although not to our level of need, and they are just loaded now at GKer, starting next season with Mamardashvili coming in, grrrrrrrrrrrr.

Pool's big issue is next season, when they may lose VVD, Salah, and TAA, all on frees. They will likely sell Alisson or Caoimhín Kelleher, due to Mamar coming in. They also need to address CF,  as Darwin just is not good enough, and Dogo Jota is not a lead the line type (plus he is often injured)

[Magic Lamps 11,658]

This is still a a squad with 1bn+ spent on, so I don’t really like this “ahead of the curve” or “ahead exceeding expectations”. When you spend that amount of money, Top 4 should be a minimum requirement no matter how young the team or inexperienced the coach 

that being said, I like how Enzo has brought back the joy, the football looks great, everybody looks like they are enjoying themselves and we are banging in goals for fun. I particularly like how Enzo has proven himself a lot more versatile than we feared. His footy at Leicester was quite one dimensional pass orgies, but we have seen our team play super direct on the counter, classic wing play, under lapping and overlapping defenders, mid press, high press, low block. We have also seen a lot of players who looked like lost causes show how good they actually are. The problems at the back are quite clearly quality issues. I still believe we would be further ahead without a lot of these stupid clownlake BS and more common sense but Enzo has made the most of what he got.

final thought, what I also did not like was how ppl on here said Enzo has no personality smh. From day one he has been a sanguine, positive presence with evident passion for the game and clear ideas. His lack of experience might still catch up with him and it is rare for someone like this to win big titles but on the other hand the more experienced Poch failed spectacularly when it mattered. While the trend was going up at the end, I perceived him as inadvertently toxic at times. It looks like Enzo has learned from and built smartly on last season 

[King Kante 1,492]

1 hour ago, Vesper said:

3rd or 4th with a squad with huge issues at GKer and CB would be astounding work by Maresca. 2nd would be out of this world.

Pool are (atm, especially with Real and Citeh's massive injury issues) the best team on the planet, IMHO, and they may strengthen in January. The only one who is close (I do not put Bayern or PSG or Inter up there at that level) are Barca, and they are a bit in the mud atm (but I am sure will turn it around). Pool (like us) need help at CB, although not to our level of need, and they are just loaded now at GKer, starting next season with Mamardashvili coming in, grrrrrrrrrrrr.

Pool's big issue is next season, when they may lose VVD, Salah, and TAA, all on frees. They will likely sell Alisson or Caoimhín Kelleher, due to Mamar coming in. They also need to address CF,  as Darwin just is not good enough, and Dogo Jota is not a lead the line type (plus he is often injured)

Personally, I am not that convinced the Dippers are that good. They are for sure on a good run, but when I watch them, they can be up and down and seem to be grinding a lot of games. For instance, they should have lost against Soton. Firstly because the ref didn't give Soton a blatant pen when they were 2-1 up and second they needed Soton to essentially score their three goals for them. 

[Special Juan 27,432]

I liked his words in regards to todays game- He spoke about how tough it will be and one of our hardest games, I like this way as it is making the players think as opposed to thinking because they are the basement boys 3 points are not guaranteed. We have had a habit of neglecting teams in the past and this is something Maresca has to turn around and become immensely ruthless against poor opposition and kill them off quickly.

He's getting a style of play together you can clearly see that but he has to deal with the mindset of the players and ensure we become and absolute nightmare to play against and get back to how we used to be many years ago.

[MoroccanBlue 5,312]

6 hours ago, King Kante said:

Tbh, we are still a GK and RCB away from a league title. Personally, I suspect the Dippers to grind their way to a title and Arsenal to keep ahead. 3rd-4th feels about right for the profile of the squad currently. 

Think our current lot are also 1-2 years away experience wise to really challenge too. 

Edited 8 hours ago by MoroccanBlue

[milka 3,347]

Looking at the schedule, we only have away games against City, Arsenal and Tottenham on Sunday , after January we host United, Liverpool, Tottenham (direct rivals) from the other teams that we have traditional difficulties  (away game against Everton at the end of the month and Newcastle) so a place in the top four is a must no excuses. Title  unlikely this season let's be real . Next year if we get top GK , CB and ST .

[Vesper 28,886]

1 hour ago, King Kante said:

Personally, I am not that convinced the Dippers are that good. They are for sure on a good run, but when I watch them, they can be up and down and seem to be grinding a lot of games. For instance, they should have lost against Soton. Firstly because the ref didn't give Soton a blatant pen when they were 2-1 up and second they needed Soton to essentially score their three goals for them. 

It is more a matter of the other top teams being poor atm.

There is no clearly dominant, clearly the best side on the planet team like 2019-2021 (a run over a season and a half) Bayern Munich, who won everything possible in a 2020-2021 consecutive run (the FWCC was played in early 2021 due to Covid) under Hansi Flick. They won, in a straight linear fashion, the the 2019-20 Bundesliga, the 2019-20 DFB Pokal, the 2019-20 Champions League, the 2020 UEFA Super Cup, then the 2020 DFL Super Cup, and then to finish it off, the 2020 Fifa World Club Championship in February 2021.

The only thing they dropped (and they did win it in 2020, so kept the linear streak going) was the 2019 DFL Super Cup, 2 -nil to Dortmund (that was before Flick came in after Niko Kovač was sacked in November 2019).

Liverpool do have some issues.

Overall they are not the paciest side.

They are lacking a 2nd great CB, and now the starter Konate (who I do not really rate, but he is their 2nd best CB) is out.

They do not have a true disrupter at DMF.

And they are wank at CF.

[Vesper 28,886]

14 minutes ago, MoroccanBlue said:

Think our current lot are also 1-2 years away experience wise to really challenge too. 

If we sort GKer and CB (and some minor tweaks) we can, starting next season, and then for multiple years going forward, challenge for both the EPL and the CL titles. Hopefully he get GK and CB sorted before the 2025 new format Fifa World Club Championship. No Barca, no Pool, no Arse in it (and wow are their fanbases PISSED, although Arsenal have not won shit so they can fuck right off) means the only truly HUGE threats to us in that are, talent-wise, Real, Bayern, PSG, Citeh, and Inter, IMHO.

[Vesper 28,886]

Wesley Fofana’s injury presents a problem for Chelsea. Who will Maresca turn to?

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5965565/2024/12/04/Chelsea-wesley-fofana-injury-analysis/

Wesley Fofana was a huge reason why Enzo Maresca’s game plan worked so well for the first hour of Chelsea’s 3-0 win over Aston Villa on Sunday.

Maresca set up his team to disrupt Villa’s preferred method of playing out from the back, with Nicolas Jackson applying an aggressive first line of pressure. Cole Palmer stuck close to Youri Tielemans in order to limit his opportunities to receive passes and progress the ball.

Behind them, Levi Colwill was encouraged to push well beyond Chelsea’s defensive line to track Morgan Rogers whenever he dropped into deeper areas for Villa.

That left Fofana all alone to manage Ollie Watkins, one of the Premier League’s most relentlessly mobile strikers. Deprived of many of their usual shorter passing options, the visitors tried to find him early and often.

Fofana made one big misjudgement in the first half, allowing Watkins to nick the ball around him from a searching John McGinn pass, and was bailed out by Robert Sanchez in the resulting one-on-one. On the whole, however, he got the better of that particular battle, helping to restrict Villa’s primary goal threat to two shot attempts and 17 touches in total.

Then, in the 56th minute, the body which constitutes Fofana’s biggest strength and his biggest weakness failed him again. He trod and slipped on the ball as he shielded it from Watkins, and felt something give way in his right hamstring.

“These kinds of things usually require three, four, five weeks (for recovery),” Maresca said in his post-match press conference. “In this moment, that means we lose him for 10 or 12 games. The way he was playing, it’s a big loss for us but we have more players and we can find a solution.”

To be precise, Chelsea have seven Premier League matches to play between now and the FA Cup third round, which is scheduled for the first weekend in January. There are also two Europa Conference League matches against Astana and Shamrock Rovers during that stretch, but neither will stress Maresca’s squad. Fofana was not even registered for the league phase of the competition in an attempt to manage his load.

It is in the Premier League where Fofana’s absence will be most keenly felt; he and Colwill have been Maresca’s starting centre-back pairing in 10 of the first 13 matches. While Villa was only their third clean sheet of the season, there have been plenty of indications that their highly complementary skill sets could yield a formidable partnership in time.

 

Tosin (left) and Badiashile are options to replace Fofana (Robin Jones/Getty Images)

Colwill has impressed with his front-foot defending and is clearly Chelsea’s most accomplished passer out of the defensive third. Despite his numerous injuries, Fofana remains an exceptional Premier League athlete, possessing the speed to cover big spaces against highly mobile attackers as well as the vertical leap to dominate in the air in open play and at set-pieces.

Fofana has won 23 of his 33 aerial duels in the Premier League this season according to fbref.com, giving him a 69.7 per cent success rate that ranks fifth in the division among defenders with at least 10 matches played and 30 aerial duels contested. Colwill, for context, has won 19 of 35 aerial duels in 2024-25 (54.3 per cent success).

So which player will provide the “solution” that Maresca is looking for? Benoit Badiashile, Axel Disasi and Tosin Adarabioyo have at least been able to maintain match sharpness with a regular diet of Europa Conference League outings, meaning none should take long to get up to the speed and intensity of Premier League football.

Badiashile is the frontrunner. That much is clear from the fact that Maresca chose him to replace Fofana against Villa despite also having Tosin to call upon. Disasi did not even make the matchday squad. He had previously partnered Colwill in central defence as a second-half substitute against Liverpool at Anfield in October.

Soon after that game, there was a strong response from within Chelsea to suggestions that the club might consider selling Badiashile. He remains highly valued at Stamford Bridge despite falling below Colwill and Fofana in Maresca’s pecking order. The internal consensus is that he continues to make positive developmental strides and, at 23, has his best years ahead of him.

There are a lot of things to like about Badiashile. His strong, mobile frame is well-suited to the athletic and aerial demands of the Premier League and as a passer out of defence, he is the most comparable to Colwill. Maresca does not appear to have any concerns about fielding two left-footed centre-backs together and, in any case, Badiashile was deployed as a right-sided centre-back on numerous occasions during his Monaco career.

To succeed next to Colwill as Fofana’s deputy, however, Badiashile would need to eliminate the damaging lapses in concentration that have undermined some of his good games in a Chelsea shirt and punctuated many of his bad ones. The idea of him providing the last line of cover in front of Sanchez will be a particular source of unease for anyone who recalls his bizarre mis-control to gift Newcastle striker Callum Wilson a goal in last season’s Carabao Cup quarter-final at Stamford Bridge.

On the evidence of this season so far, Tosin is the likeliest alternative if Maresca decides he does not trust Badiashile. The former Fulham man was picked to partner Colwill the last time Fofana was unavailable for a Premier League match, due to suspension against Liverpool at Anfield in October.

He lasted just 53 minutes that day, his substitution coming shortly after he and club captain Reece James failed to account for Curtis Jones’ late run into the visiting penalty area which yielded the decisive goal in a 2-1 win for Liverpool. That sequence was an example of Chelsea struggling with Maresca’s desire to set ‘‘the Pellegrini offside trap’ on the edge of their box, and their 1.9 expected goals (xG) conceded at Anfield marks it out as one of their three worst defensive performances of the season.

Tosin has not appeared in the Premier League since, though he has been a part of two clean sheets against vastly inferior opposition in the Europa Conference League and highlighted his aerial ability with a goal in the 8-0 rout of FC Noah last month. He has so far looked a reasonable squad addition for Chelsea, though not a significant upgrade in any aspect of his game on Trevoh Chalobah.

Disasi would be the most surprising choice, given that Maresca has played him at centre-back for just 62 minutes this season, against Barrow in the Carabao Cup third round in September.

The noises coming out of Chelsea from the early days of pre-season were that Disasi was not considered technical enough to play in Maresca’s system. The Italian’s selection over the first five months of the campaign has done nothing to dispel that notion. The Frenchman’s few minutes as a nominal right-back, predominantly in the cup competitions, have felt more geared towards keeping a senior player involved and invested rather than priming him for a bigger role.

 

Disasi against FC Noah (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

Disasi’s one Premier League start at right-back, away at Bournemouth in September, did not go well. He is nowhere near agile enough to deal with fleet-footed wingers and struggled mightily to contain Marcus Tavernier in one-on-one situations. He is a pure centre-back, and one with considerable qualities, even if they are not the ones most valued by Maresca.

A regular fixture under Mauricio Pochettino last season, Disasi is the most physically imposing of Chelsea’s centre-back options and faster than he looks, though not quite enough to convince when asked to defend large spaces. He is also a strong personality and communicative presence, which is why he has regularly captained the Europa Conference League side.

Maresca’s comments after the Villa win made it clear he considers Fofana to be a significant upgrade on all three of the established centre-back alternatives in his squad, particularly in games where Chelsea seek to press high and defend with almost half of the pitch behind them.

There are no perfect solutions but given Fofana’s injury record, this particular question was always likely to present itself at some point. Maresca’s success in finding an answer will have a significant impact on just how strongly Chelsea can finish 2024.