Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca has revealed what he has done differently to Mauricio Pochettino and Graham Potter to improve results since taking over at Stamford Bridge.
Maresca’s predecessors were both dismissed from their roles, with Potter underperforming during his time at the club while Pochettino left midway through his two-year deal.
Chelsea fans had grown frustrated with the performances of their team since Thomas Tuchel was sacked in Clearlake Capital and Todd Boehly’s first full season in charge of the Blues.
However, Maresca has brought the smiles back to the faces of Chelsea fans, and has even earned himself his own chant – becoming the first manager to have the vocal support of the travelling fans since Champions League winner Tuchel.
From Pochettino having a bowl of lemons in his office to bring good luck to Potter taking his Chelsea stars to meet soldiers to improve team spirit, the former Blues bosses had some interesting techniques which ultimately didn’t work.
Maresca, on the other hand, is choosing to put all his time and energy into his players on the pitch, and has revealed one key difference that has seen him succeed where the other failed during his early spell at the club.
Speaking ahead of Chelsea’s clash against Tottenham Hotspur, Maresca was asked to point out just what he is doing to get the best out of a squad where others have failed.
He answered: “I try to spend hours to understand how I can help the players.”
Expanding on his methods, Maresca revealed that he puts on extra sessions for his players to help them improve, using video analysis to show where they can do better.
“We just finished the session, the last half an hour was an extra session for some of the players to improve them,” Maresca continued.
“We watched the last game, worked with them to improve. I have four or five assistants upstairs to spend time on small details about position – control with the right and left (feet), play with the right, play with the left. This kind of thing.”
With Maresca taking a hands-on approach to his coaching, he has also been vocal with constructive criticism of his players this season.
Two players that have felt the wrath of the Italian in the media are Reece James and Noni Madueke, with the Chelsea captain urged to become a better leader while Maresca admitted he was unhappy with Madueke in training.
When asked about this constructive criticism, and whether his Chelsea players can’t see him as a friend because of it, Maresca produced a brilliant analogy.
He said: “I try to be, not a friend, but close to the players. Sometimes between friends, when you say something wrong to your friend he’s not happy. He has to know that what you say is because you want to take care of him.
“I like to be quite close (to the players). At the past at Leicester, I had a fantastic relation with the players. This is the way I like to have relations with the players. The same here.
“When you say something they don’t like, they think you don’t want to be close but it’s a way to be close and show them I take care of them. It’s not this (to show I’m the boss).
“The same happened with Reece when I spoke about leadership, it’s because I wanted the best for Reece and for him to improve. For Noni, this is not different. The only reason I said this the other day is because I want the best from Noni and to get the best you have to push him. If he relaxes a little bit, it’s wrong.”
Chelsea fans will be hoping that Maresca can keep up his magic and will be pleased with their manager’s ideas, where everything is down to the work done on the training pitch.
The Italian has proven that he does not need any lucky lemons or team bonding exercises to get the best out of a young Chelsea squad, and long may it continue.
