Enzo Maresca Thread

[Vytis33 1,188]

 

[Blue Armour 4,355]

14 hours ago, Vytis33 said:

 

Strange that he changed his tone now.

Probably got a stern talking to from the board/directors.

Only last month., he was talking about having no ambitions for top 4 this year. Mind games, I guess.

[milka 3,372]

PR to shut the fans   first he say he needs 2 year just to reach top 4 now he speak how he work to be in the top 4  you can't win titlies with 17 years old kids from Brazil what a  stupid PR.  Titles are won by showing ambition and signing proven players.
Even this Estevao Willian, who is being hyped about, won't do anything without proven players around him same as Cole Palmer . Show ambition go and get Diogo Costa , Osimhen , Frenkie De Jong  we want that type of players and then we can speak  everything else is PR to buy time .

Edited February 22 by milka

[Vytis33 1,188]

Wasn’t this almost exactly what happened to him at Leicester?
 

 

[NikkiCFC 8,105]

We played very good team away. Bayern, Liverpool, City couldn't win there... And today we would win without individual mistakes... Jorgensen howler, Palmer sitter... Today zero issues with Maresca...

[Laylabelle 9,433]

19 minutes ago, Vytis33 said:

Wasn’t this almost exactly what happened to him at Leicester?
 

 

Yeah they were 17 clear one stage then bammm crap run...won the league with a one point gap

[Fulham Broadway 17,043]

Like the Leicester fans warned us, Maresca has no plan B.

[Fernando 6,510]

I still want Enzo to continue and I hope we finish in top 4 so that will bring more money for us to improve in the summer. 

 

[calculatingInfinity 1,467]

Maresca is far from a perfect manager of course, but as long as he hasnt lost the dressing room... I want him to stay and improve with the team. 

Think there's a lot of promising signs and with another summer transfer window, I do believe the squad could really be shaped around his ideas.

Sadly I also think the club got too many long contracts with players that dont belong at the club like Mudryk, Sterling and so on, and players that certainly got the talent but also are too injury prone (reece james, fofana, lavia). It's not a great situation and a lot of it is the fault of the absolute clown management from the top.

 

Edited February 26 by calculatingInfinity

[Vesper 29,318]

Inside Chelsea’s on-pitch slump: Leaders step up, frank meeting, January issues and will to improve

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6163696/2025/02/28/Chelsea-slump-behind-the-scenes/

Two days after suffering the second of back-to-back away defeats against Brighton & Hove Albion, a group of Chelsea’s senior players initiated a team meeting at Cobham.

While producing what head coach Enzo Maresca subsequently described as “the worst performance” of his tenure in the 3-0 reverse at the Amex Stadium, Chelsea’s body language on the pitch was every bit as alarming as their play. Team-mates openly argued with each other after misplaced passes or missed chances. A noticeable drop in intensity with and without the ball. Meek acceptance in a dire second half that another defeat was coming.

The result — Chelsea’s fourth Premier League loss in nine games — dropped them below Manchester City and Bournemouth to sixth in the Premier League table. Maresca’s team were in freefall and hopes of Champions League qualification, the primary objective of the season, were in danger of slipping away. An intervention was needed.

In the meeting — according to numerous sources who, as with everyone consulted for this article, spoke anonymously to The Athletic to protect relationships — frank words were exchanged. Some of the key points made were that standards in training needed to improve, the players needed to be more serious and together, and that individual egos and ambitions must be set aside for the good of the team.

Coming out of the meeting, the consensus was very positive, that honest conversation had been highly productive in terms of clearing the air.

Some in the squad had harboured concerns about the level of leadership shown during the bad run, but the day after the meeting, club captain Reece James and others in the leadership group in the Chelsea squad — which is fluid around the edges but includes at its core Enzo Fernandez, Moises Caicedo, Levi Colwill, “Uncle” Tosin Adarabioyo and third-choice goalkeeper Marcus Bettinelli, a popular player in the dressing room — arranged a team meal in a further attempt to bring the players closer together.

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Results do not always provide immediate validation. Chelsea lost again on their next Premier League outing against Aston Villa, but while the pattern of the game was similar to some of their other defeats over the previous two months, the vibe was very different. Maresca’s team started brightly, took the lead and remained competitive after the home side equalised, missing chances to win before being undone in the 89th minute when goalkeeper Filip Jorgensen allowed Marco Asensio’s shot to squirm underneath him.

TV footage captured Fernandez fighting back tears as he apologised to the Chelsea away support. Back in the dressing room, some of his team-mates were lying on the floor in exhaustion. James volunteered himself to front up and field questions from the media — another notable sign that he is growing into his captaincy and responding to the public challenge Maresca issued in October for him to show more leadership within the squad.

 

As club captain, James has had to step up in times of trouble (Alex Pantling/Getty Images)

Chelsea finally got the win they had been searching for at home against Southampton on Tuesday. Anything less would have deepened the sense of crisis, given that their opponents might finish this season as the worst team of the Premier League era. But the manner in which victory was achieved — overcoming some early nerves amplified by the unease emanating from the Stamford Bridge stands, keeping a clean sheet and scoring four goals, with Christopher Nkunku and Pedro Neto stepping up on a rare off-day in the final third for Cole Palmer — felt cathartic.

“I just said to the players that probably we are in our worst moment in terms of results, but we are fourth, one point from the third, and we are in our worst moment,” Maresca said in his post-match press conference. “So that means a lot, and also shows how good we have been in the first part of the season. Now it’s just a matter of trying to finish in the best way.”

---

There are no indications that Maresca’s standing in the dressing room has been damaged by Chelsea’s bad run. He is held in high regard by many players for the quality of his training sessions and his attention to tactical details. While the broad structure of his system has remained consistent this season, he has also garnered credit for his flexibility in making tweaks to individual player roles and positioning from game to game.

Ahead of the Villa game Maresca abandoned the failed experiment of deploying Nkunku and Palmer as dual false nines, instead moving Neto up front to exploit the spaces behind Unai Emery’s defensive line and also springing a surprise by picking James alongside Caicedo at the base of midfield. “We worked hard all week on analysing Villa and where we could exploit them, and I think we created many chances in the first half,” Chelsea’s captain said afterwards.

That approach evolved again with a reshuffle for the Southampton game. James moved to the bench, Fernandez dropped deeper alongside Caicedo and Jadon Sancho started on the right flank to allow Palmer to operate as a central creator behind Neto, with Nkunku on the left.

Maresca has had no choice but to get creative in recent weeks, with Chelsea’s squad heavily depleted by injuries to several key players and by the January departures of Joao Felix, Renato Veiga and Axel Disasi, who all pushed for loan moves in search of more regular game time.

Some sources question whether Maresca might have managed certain situations better, pointing out that none of Chelsea’s rivals in the upper reaches of the Premier League faced as many cases of players angling to leave in the winter. In addition to the three first-team players who departed, Nkunku and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall also struggled with the frequency of their opportunities in the first half of the campaign before ultimately sticking around.

 

Nkunku is getting a run of games (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

The perception lingered among some of an A team and a B team within the squad — something Maresca denied on the record in a press conference in November. “The reason why we make changes is not because we are the ‘A team’ or the ‘B team’: we are all one team,” he said.

“The only reason is because they all deserve to play. Some of them are playing Premier League games, some of them in the Conference League or Carabao Cup. But in one game or two games, it can change; the ones playing Carabao and Conference games can then play in the Premier League. We have 24 or 25 outfield players, and there is only one team, only one squad. What we try to do is to share minutes with all of them.”

It is also fair to point out that footballers being dissatisfied with their game time is a universal reality of squad management at the top level.

“We have 25 players that all want to play but it is not possible,” Maresca said in a press conference ahead of Chelsea’s 2-2 draw with Bournemouth last month. “Our target is to, first of all, do the best for the club and the team — that means trying to win games. Also, if we can keep players happy, then we are happy. But that is not the reality. The players are happy just if they play and if they don’t play, then they are not happy.”

The problem appears to have been particularly acute at Chelsea last month, given that Maresca publicly described the noise around certain players in January as “a disaster” for maintaining the focus of his squad. Perhaps not coincidentally, it was also around this time that he took the step of addressing his players in front of all of the assembled support staff at Cobham.

“‘When I arrive here at 7am, there are people from the kitchen cutting the fruit in the same way: cut, cut, cut, cut,’” Maresca revealed last week that he told his players. “‘There are people behind (you) who you cannot see, who are working every day to help you to reach your target (of qualifying for the Champions League).’”

---

Injuries are regarded internally as being the most significant contributing factor to Chelsea’s recent struggles.

Wesley Fofana, Romeo Lavia, Nicolas Jackson and Noni Madueke are all picked regularly in the Premier League by Maresca when fit and have featured prominently in some of the team’s most impressive performances. Trevoh Chalobah was playing the meaningful role he had been promised on his recall from loan at Crystal Palace before being forced off with an impact injury in the eighth minute against Villa.

Other frequent starters not technically on the injured list have been playing with minor physical issues, which is not unusual at this point in a long campaign.

Unlike last season under Mauricio Pochettino, when the relatively high number of injuries players suffered in training sparked concern, most of Chelsea’s recent problems have occurred during matches and are more readily attributable to bad luck, or standard wear and tear. But that does not change the fact that certain absences have fundamentally altered the balance of Maresca’s team.

It is not just that Chelsea are missing some of their better players. Relationships have been disrupted all over the pitch. Colwill has not had a consistent centre-back partner since Fofana was sidelined in the 3-0 win against Villa at Stamford Bridge at the start of December. Lavia’s absence has increased the burden on Caicedo and often required Fernandez to play in a deeper role, where he can combine less frequently with Palmer. The struggles of Chelsea’s best player, too, cannot be separated from losing Jackson and Madueke, the two attackers with whom he shares the most productive chemistry in the final third.

 

Palmer’s recent dip in form is a concern for Maresca and Chelsea (Julian Finney/Getty Images)

That situation is beginning to ease. Fofana was back in the squad for the Southampton win and could feature when his former club Leicester City visit Stamford Bridge on March 9. Lavia is also nearing a return. Jackson and Madueke are projected to be sidelined until after next month’s international break, making it more important that Nkunku and Neto build on their improving form and Palmer re-discovers his best rhythm.

Chelsea have the rare luxury of time to prepare — mentally, physically and tactically — for the four matches they must navigate across the Premier League and Conference League before then, culminating in a trip to face Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium on March 16 that will provide a true test of their efforts to build fresh momentum heading into the season’s final stretch.

Adversity is part of elite sport, and fighting through it is a non-negotiable part of any team’s journey towards success. On numerous occasions in the last two months, Maresca has insisted, not always entirely convincingly, that living these moments will make his young Chelsea squad better in the long run. Some around the squad believe it to be less about experience and more about seasoning: the process of growing together in the bad times as well as the good.

The time for Chelsea to show that process is working is fast approaching, against far more daunting opponents than Championship-bound Southampton. But the will is there, and Maresca spoke for more than just himself when he responded to a question about the supporter protest that took place outside Stamford Bridge ahead of Tuesday’s game.

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“The only thing I can say is that in this moment I think the fans have to trust (the club), because we are in the right process, we are in the right direction,” he said. “I said many times that since we started I think we have been in the top four most games of the season, so that means that we are in the right direction, the club is in the right direction.

“Especially I think they have to trust the players, because the players are doing a huge effort every day to bring this club where it has to be, that is in the Champions League.”

[ZAPHOD2319 4,579]

 

[Special Juan 27,601]

Empty words, simply if he does not continue to win he will be sacked, end of.

[NikkiCFC 8,105]

There are a lot of similarities to Sarri season. Both italian managers known for possession football. Sarri started great, first defeat was in round of 13th. In the winter we had bad run and some horrible results. Losses to Bournemouth 4:0 and City 6:0. People wanted him out. From title talk after 1/3 of the season we were 6th at one point. But Sarri finished strong with 3rd place and European trophy. Can Maresca do the same?

[OneMoSalah 8,826]

On 05/03/2025 at 12:12, ZAPHOD2319 said:

 

If he is untouchable then we are fucked. Still not getting enough positivity out of that midfield and attack. 0 shots on target in the first half against Copenhagen is abysmal. Then what 2 on target out of 5 in the second half after bringing on the likes of Nkunku, Enzo Fernandez, with the likes of Cole on as well? 

On 05/03/2025 at 13:05, NikkiCFC said:

There are a lot of similarities to Sarri season. Both italian managers known for possession football. Sarri started great, first defeat was in round of 13th. In the winter we had bad run and some horrible results. Losses to Bournemouth 4:0 and City 6:0. People wanted him out. From title talk after 1/3 of the season we were 6th at one point. But Sarri finished strong with 3rd place and European trophy. Can Maresca do the same?

Sarri’s style of play was actually a lot better, for me anyway. Our ability to build up, the patterns of play, certain rotations and combinations were much much better in the first two thirds of the pitch. Ok in attack we were still a little bit short but I felt that we were pretty good in most aspects.

With Maresca, it is the opposite. Was the same thing with Poch too. Under pressure we are far too sloppy. And when these midfielders have the ball with Maresca it is 75% of the time very laboured, a lot more sideways and backwards passes than trying to at least look forward or break the lines. Half the issues with us playing against low blocks is that we are far too slow and ponderous at getting the ball into the final third. Then we have too much inexperience and inconsistency with decision making. The games we have played with a lot more direct, quick, transitions with Enzo, we were more exciting and scored more goals…. Which was the same with Poch. 

[Vesper 29,318]

Enzo Maresca and the ongoing debate – for both Chelsea and Leicester fans

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6182837/2025/03/08/enzo-maresca-Chelsea-leicester-fans/

The second instalment of the ‘Enzo Maresca derby’ this weekend brings two sets of fans together who have a lot more in common regarding the Chelsea head coach now than they did during the inaugural edition four months ago.

When Maresca went back to previous employers Leicester City for the first time with Chelsea on November 23, his popularity among the west London club’s following was well and truly on the rise. The 2-1 win secured against the team he was in charge of last season lifted Chelsea to third in the top-flight table and generally the mood towards the Italian among their supporters was overwhelmingly positive.

There has been a downturn in Chelsea’s results over the past three months, though, to divide opinion a lot more.

Maresca experienced similar at Leicester around this time last year, when they made hard work of instant promotion back from the Championship as a 12-point lead in the February slipped steadily through their fingers to become just a one-point gap when the music stopped in May.

The guy might feel a little hard done by. He did still take Leicester back up to the Premier League as champions, and Chelsea go into this weekend’s round of games in that division just two points off third place. They are also firm favourites to win the Conference League.

And yet Chelsea’s performance in a 2-1 away win against FC Copenhagen on Thursday in the first leg of a last-16 tie in UEFA’s third-tier competition earned more criticism than praise from their supporters — the kind of thing he had to put up with in the latter stages of 2023-24 while at Leicester.

So there is a possibility that many people in all four stands at Stamford Bridge will be rather united in their views when the teams play each other again on Sunday.

Talking to Iain Wright, a Leicester season-ticket holder of over 20 years, about last season it is like listening to the gripes Chelsea fans have raised during this one.

 

Maresca got Leicester promoted as Championship title winners last season (Alex Livesey/Getty Images)

Wright tells The Athletic: “Where the frustration started to come in was that it almost felt like the other teams worked us out a little bit. They knew what we wanted to do was start slowly, keep the ball, maybe not press too much, almost wear teams out, and the result will come to us.

“What started to happen was that the teams would nick the ball, break on us and score. Then we looked a little bit lost. The games can sometimes happen to him (Maresca) rather than him affecting them. I think that was a real feature of that second part of the season.

“The anxiety started to build in the fanbase. I can remember one particular game, we were 1-0 down away at Bristol City last March. It’s injury time and we’re still passing the ball along the halfway line and you’re like, ‘Just get it near the goal!’.”

As The Athletic reads these quotes to some Chelsea fans in Copenhagen airport before their flight home on Friday, they nod and laugh in acknowledgement.

In Chelsea’s last home league game, against last-placed Southampton, the jeers and boos from their fans were audible as goalkeeper Filip Jorgensen and the defenders around him passed the ball sideways between each other when the score was still 0-0 (Marseca’s side did go on to record a 4-0 win).

Clayton Beerman, a Chelsea season-ticket holder of over 40 years, has not been impressed with what he’s seen from the new man so far: “Some of the football we’ve been watching over the last couple of months is as bad as (Maurizio) Sarri (Chelsea’s head coach in the 2018-19 season, when they finished third, albeit 27 points adrift of champions Manchester City, won the Europa League final and got to the Carabao Cup final) in terms of how slow it is, how turgid it is, and I just think that it’s not very enjoyable.”

Beerman has an ally in Jonathan Kydd, a Stamford Bridge season-ticket holder of 35 years.

“He’s got really electric players and I think he’s stifled them,” Kydd says of Maresca. “He’s trying to get them to play a particular way that I suspect is ‘Inept Pep (Guardiola, the Manchester City manager who the 45-year-old worked under before taking the Leicester job in May 2023)’, but it’s only succeeding in confusing them.

“It’s taking away their natural desire, their exuberance, and that’s one of the major problems I have with watching the team — this lack of energy. He’s managed to make Malo Gusto into an average player and he was top-banana last year. Maresca doesn’t want to play this up-and-down football. Well, if the players can’t play your system, mate, you’re screwed. It’s no good saying, ‘Well, we’ll keep on with my system’.

“I don’t think it’s an anti-philosophy thing. You need to be able to see what’s happening on the pitch. We’re not thick. We’ve been brought up the last 20 years seeing very good football, and when we see not-very-good football, we’re not saying we don’t like the philosophy, we’re saying do something to get it right.”

You can add Graham Barker, who has watched Chelsea home and away since 1986, to the list of detractors as far as the lack of entertainment is concerned.

“I don’t like this constant passing side-to-side,” he says. “I think he (Maresca) has gone backwards as the season has gone on, become more negative. By going sideways and then back again, it is his way of trying to control games, but safe football doesn’t win you games. You can stay in them for a while, but good sides only need one chance and then it is no good if you have had 68 per cent possession without creating anything.”

Not everyone is feeling downbeat about it, though. Tom Overend, a younger Chelsea fan than those quoted above at age 26, approves of what he is seeing and believes he is not the only one with that opinion: “I really like the way he has inducted a style of play. I also like how he has adapted to injuries — for example, playing Pedro Neto up top in Nicolas Jackson’s absence.

“His grasp of the tactical side of the game has been high quality and for a coach so new, he has managed to bring a sense of authority to the club. Some of his press conferences can be frustrating, but generally he has managed to come across as a figure of authority.

 

Chelsea’s players celebrating a goal against Southampton (Julian Finney/Getty Images)

“I think there is a variety of views among the fanbase. Some people see it as part of the club’s identity to fire the coach if we don’t achieve our goals over one season. Others have a different view, they want to give him time in a way other coaches haven’t had in the past. I am not alone in my view of him, I reckon there is a 50-50 split. But there is a feeling that if he gets us in the Champions League (for next season) he stays, if he doesn’t, he goes. I just think that is a bit of an ultimatum and Chelsea need to look beyond that these days.”

Maresca’s press conferences are definitely a cause for contention. His dismissal of Chelsea’s Premier League title chances came when they were second in the table before Christmas, and there have also been mixed messages over whether qualifying for next season’s Champions League is a target.

Kydd adds: “I began to doubt him when we were second and he said we’re not good enough (to compete for the title). You don’t hear the Bournemouth manager (Andoni Iraola) saying, ‘We’re not good enough’, when they’re fifth and winning. You go with it, you don’t make a negative statement. It doesn’t give you any confidence about him as a manager, I’m afraid.

“There was also his terrible statement when we went out of the FA Cup (losing 2-1 to Brighton in the fourth round last month), saying, ‘It’s given us an opportunity to concentrate on the league’. For me, it was a negation of everything that it means to be Chelsea. We’re a great cup side. The cups mean an enormous amount to the supporters, and to say that was crass beyond belief.”

Like Overend, Barker wants Maresca to be given time to succeed. However, he wants him to speak more like the confident managers the club have had in the past.

“There is a fine balance between talking yourself up and having egg on your face,” he concedes. “But you do have to come out as a Chelsea head coach and make it clear at the start of the season, ‘I want to win the league and if not, finish in the top four. I want to go a long way in the cups, in Europe. I want to win one of them, or at least go very close’. If you give negative vibes out to players, it is a ready-made excuse for them. They don’t have to put as much effort in, because the manager has kind of already said that it doesn’t matter if they lose this one.”

Despite some of the misgivings Wright had about what Maresca was doing at Leicester, he is genuinely sorry to see him in charge of Chelsea instead.

“I think people at Leicester took to Enzo straight away with that charisma and aura and that’s important in this modern age,” he says. “You do need that sort of personality and I think he definitely had that. Ultimately, the vast, vast majority of Leicester fans are sad that he did go and we didn’t get to see what he could have offered, and what we could have done, in the Premier League.”

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This ability to connect with fans is seen as one of Maresca’s strong points at Chelsea too. The other permanent hires made by the club’s current hierarchy since the 2022 takeover, Graham Potter and Mauricio Pochettino, did not forge much of a connection during their brief tenures.

“It’s one of the reasons why he should still be given a chance,” Barker argues. “Pochettino came with Tottenham baggage (having managed one of Chelsea’s biggest rivals) and a lot of fans never accepted him because of it. Enzo will at least come onto the pitch after games and also says things in interviews after a defeat like, ‘The fans deserve better’. It is good to at least be acknowledged in some way.”

 

Maresca has projected a sense of authority, according to Chelsea fans (Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)

It was noticeable how even after the underwhelming display on Thursday, the sizeable travelling contingent who made the trip to Denmark gave the players and coaching staff a warm send-off when they went over to them before heading down the tunnel.

“This is the difference Maresca has made,” Overend says. “The whole squad do a lap of honour after home games and that gesture shows that they are trying to appreciate the fans more. Every away day, Maresca will make sure the fans are addressed and applauded, even if we don’t win. Pochettino didn’t do that, Potter didn’t have that gravitas and it wasn’t to be with him. But I think Maresca has really made that effort and it rubs off. However, it rubbed off a lot more when the results were good. Inevitably, once they turned bad, it had less importance. That’s fickle fans for you.”

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The beauty of football is people watch the same team play and have a variety of opinions about what they see. Kydd doesn’t envision Maresca lasting long at Chelsea, regardless. He says: “Many of us all have the same attitude, which is that this just isn’t good enough; he’s not good enough, the club have appointed a really inexperienced manager who is trying to learn to deal with this on his feet and can’t. He’s out of his depth.”

Beerman looks at decisions being made and dismisses Maresca as just a ‘yes-man’. But then in contrast you have Overend, who has high hopes for how the manager’s debut season will end. He says: “If Chelsea qualify for the Champions League and get the first silverware under the new ownership, what more could anyone have asked for?”

Whatever the result against Leicester, one suspects the debate over Maresca at Chelsea is only just beginning.

[Vytis33 1,188]

 

[Special Juan 27,601]

Sancho has done fuck all since he has been here, starts, looks OK then fades completely and is pulled more or less the same time each game

He's in his comfort zone both with himself and the words Romano posted above, we must not allow him to go through the motions, he has to be better and much better.