Enzo Maresca is wrong, Chelsea are going backwards and the slide must be stopped
Enzo Maresca is wrong, Chelsea are going backwards and the slide must be stopped
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You can apply a fair pinch of salt to much of what most managers say in press conferences and Enzo Maresca is no different. In November, he suggested that Jamie Vardy was the best English striker of his generation, better even than Wayne Rooney or Harry Kane. He also claimed that League One side Barrow and then a doomed Southampton were the “worst” possible opponents for his Chelsea side, who went on to score five in both games.
For the most part, though, the Italian has come across as a straight-talker, unafraid to speak the truth, whether in criticising a lack of leadership within his squad, calling out Noni Madueke’s poor training ground performances or in a now-vindicated insistence that his team were not ready to compete for the title.
![[Romeo Lavia reacts during a Premier League game between Chelsea and Newcastle]](https://static.standard.co.uk/2024/12/30/22/39/RomeoLaviaChelsea30122024.jpeg?quality=75&auto=webp&width=960)
For Chelsea’s sake, you hope that some of Maresca’s more recent remarks fall into the former category; he surely cannot really believe that his team is better now than it was two months ago. That was the claim made by the 44-year-old in the aftermath of Saturday’s 3-1 defeat to Manchester City. Two months ago, though, Chelsea were at the start of a five-match winning run that would take them onto Liverpool’s heels at the top of the table and make them look a near-certainty for Champions League football approaching the midway point of the campaign.
Now, they sit sixth, above Bournemouth only on goals scored, and with just one win, at home to relegation-threatened Wolves, to show for their last seven matches. If there was an element of inevitable regression to the mean at the start of that run, then it has since become something more alarming.
