Chelsea reporter notebook: Why Maresca is unfazed by the pressure

There are I imagine a few that concur with Enzo Maresca’s feelings towards January as being “disaster” but perhaps for different reasons, writes Sky Sports’ Gail Davis.

It didn’t sound like the Chelsea boss has much time for New Year’s resolutions. It took him a good few minutes to work out when his last day off was – for the record it was sometime during November’s international break.

What is occupying much of his mind is finding a way to reignite Chelsea’s season. The club’s last league win was back in mid-December against Brentford – they blew their chance having led at Fulham to go top of the table on Boxing Day and haven’t enjoyed a victory in the league since. Add in the rising “noise” which January’s transfer window brings, especially at a club like Chelsea, and you begin to understand his disdain for the month.

His answer to being a happy Chelsea head coach, he jokes, might well be keeping his phone on silent this month.

“It is better I don’t answer,” he laughs.

The other burning issue around finding a way to get Chelsea winning again might not be quite as easy as flicking a switch. The concern for Chelsea is that a bit of a pattern is emerging.

Against Fulham on Boxing Day they dominated the first half and took the lead only to find themselves sucked into a game plan they didn’t want to play after half-time, and the match ended in a 2-1 Fulham win. Defeat against Ipswich followed after Maresca’s team were again wasteful in front of goal. Then came the draw with Crystal Palace after Cole Palmer had put Chelsea ahead but they failed to close out the game. At Stamford Bridge last Tuesday, Chelsea had 26 shots against Bournemouth and 10 on target – Palmer scored the first, but they needed a Reece James free-kick late on to salvage a point.

Maresca in his short managerial career has faced a bump like this before. Last year at Leicester after blowing the Championship away in the opening few months, the club hit a wobble.

He did learn from it he says and can draw on some of the learnings of what he did to get Leicester through it and back to the Premier League. Ultimately, he says, the stakes may seem higher but the solutions are the same.

“No, I don’t feel pressure, no matter if I was at Leicester last year or here. I mean, I feel pressure because I put pressure on myself to see how we can do better, how we can help players to improve,” he said.

“So this kind of pressure for sure, but it’s not just here. It was last year, it was two years ago in some way. So it’s not, for me, it’s not a big change between last year and this year.

“At the end, the best thing is to work with 20 players, 25 players day-by-day. Young players, they want to learn, they want to improve. And this is the same job at Leicester as here or I said in some way two years ago.”

He adds: “If you see the table in this moment, unless you are Liverpool, the rest, we all had a bad moment, bad results for four or five games, and it’s Arsenal, Chelsea, Newcastle, Aston Villa, City, all of us.

“So I think the normal thing is that this kind of moment is going to happen during the season, the normal thing. It hasn’t to Liverpool really, and if they can finish the season in the way they are doing, that means that they are completely deserving to win, but there are so many games to play that anything can happen.”

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In those more challenging moments, I ask “do you have a network of people outside of your coaching team who you can call on?”

Given that Maresca played across 11 different clubs across four different countries under the likes of Carlo Ancelotti and Marcello Lippi and of course alongside Pep Guardiola, you can only imagine the names and numbers saved in his contacts, so the answer is surprising.

“My four kids,” he says.

“I guess you can’t get more honest than your kids”, I add. “But really, no-one else?”

“No, I don’t have any,” Maresca replies. “I have the coaching staff with me, that we try to help each other, and then I don’t have any person outside of the club, or outside of the coaching staff,” he admits.

There is clearly an unshakable belief in what he is doing. You don’t need anyone else, I ask.

“Not at the moment, hopefully not in the future, but at the moment I’m okay. I spend almost all my day here, from 7 o’clock to 7 o’clock then I go home to my four kids and wife and I try to recover a little bit of energy.”

“So come on then,” I ask, “what’s the best thing one of your kids has said to you over the last few weeks? Something like. ‘Daddy, when are you going to start scoring?”, I jest.

“The good thing is now they are understanding,” Maresca says. “The biggest one is 11, so sometimes he’s asking me about some changes, I say, already the press ask me, already the fans ask me, now also my kids ask about changes.

“Can’t you just love your dad and don’t worry? OK, OK, OK, I love you Daddy?”

If only it was always as easy as that we laugh.

There is a lightness and a warmth behind Maresca but the overriding feeling talking to him is one of intensity and a real steeliness – not a surprise when you consider the influence of Guardiola on his coaching career.

He has already shown in his short time at Chelsea that he can make sometimes unpopular decisions. He disputes the description of “brutal”, more “honest”, he says.

“I think if you are honest with the players, if you are open, if they can see that you are real and you are not fake, I think it’s the best way. And since we started, since day one, I try to be open with them, I try to be honest with them, and I think they can see that.

“I hope that they can appreciate that. I try to be close to the players, because I think in the way I like to be close to the players and then, as I said, be honest to make it work.”

The squad can never be in doubt of where they are and where they need to be – and that is focused right now, although Maresca concedes that in January that is hard for some players.

One player who has been setting those standards and who certainly isn’t going anywhere for some time is Cole Palmer. A doubt for Monday’s game with Wolves after picking up a knock against Bournemouth, Palmer has been phenomenal this season. His opener in the game on Tuesday night was another to add to the extraordinary finishes he has to his name in a Chelsea shirt.

Palmer has signed a nine-year contract, which was eyebrow-raising at the time and perhaps until news of the Erling Haaland contract deal which broke just before our interview. Two poster boys of the Premier League, two players Maresca has had the privilege of working with close up – but who might prove to be the bigger legend for their club if we look back in a decade.

“It’s so complicated,” Maresca replies. “It’s something that is almost impossible. First of all, because you can imagine a little bit of the future but at the end, you don’t know, many things can happen.

“The thing is that this kind of a club like City, like Chelsea, they try to protect or to keep the best player as long as they can. The good thing is that both are top players and they’re going to be there for a long time and we can enjoy them.”

There’s a debate that Palmer’s skillset gives his team more than maybe Haaland. Maresca smiles: “We are happy in the way he’s doing but as we said since we started, it’s not correct to rely on Cole for everything. He’s helping us, but also we have more players that are doing well and this is important.”

Those players may well get their opportunity on Monday and if they can take them then the complexion of the month may begin to change for the Chelsea head coach.

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