Enzo Maresca is confident about Chelsea's future
Enzo Maresca insists that Chelsea are not Premier League title contenders, but believes they can dominate English football in years to come.
Chelsea are third in the Premier League, level on points with second-placed Arsenal, following their impressive 3-0 win over Aston Villa on Sunday. Manchester City and Liverpool are the only side to have beaten the Blues in the league this season, with the huge expenditure on players finally paying dividends.
Cole Palmer and Nicolas Jackson are in fine form in front of goal, while big-money midfielders Enzo Fernandez, Moises Caicedo and Romeo Lavia have settled into a rhythm. Maresca is a disciple of Pep Guardiola and has got his young squad playing an attractive brand of football before their trip to play bottom side Southampton on Wednesday.
The Italian is now exactly six months into his tenure as manager, having succeeded Mauricio Pochettino in the summer. Although Chelsea are the joint closest contenders to runaway leaders Liverpool, who have a nine-point gap, Maresca will not allow his side to be brought into the title race conversation.
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Asked if he was taking that stance to protect his players, Maresca said: "No. I said, to be in the title race, it is a nice pressure for me and the players. It's not that kind of pressure that you don't like.
“It's that kind of pressure that you like because you are in the title race but it is not our case. Arsenal, in the last two years, they were very, very close to City and Liverpool, they have been there. We were not there. Hopefully soon we can be there."
Instead, Maresca is already looking ahead to the bigger picture. "The good thing is that I still think what I said to the owners and the sporting directors the first time I met them: because of the age, and how good the squad is, for me Chelsea in the next five or 10 years will be one of the teams, or the team, that will dominate English football,” he said.
The future looks bright at Chelsea ( Image: Chelsea FC via Getty Images)
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"I said this to the club the first time I met them, no matter who the manager will be. Because of the age, because of the squad, you can dominate English football. I still think exactly the same.
"In terms of a target, they didn't ask me [for] any target. The only thing they asked me was to try and build something important for the next years. I think we are in the right direction.
"In terms of a personal target, I know from the outside you struggle to believe but I just finished to see how today, this afternoon, we can use this session to help the players improve. I'm focused on Southampton, for sure, but I'm not focused about [the] end of the season, next season, two seasons because it is not real."
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