Enzo Maresca refuses to be drawn into admitting Chelsea are contenders to win the Premier League this season, but has offered an insight into when he will know they are ready to be part of the conversation.
Chelsea have exceeded all expectations this season under Maresca since his summer appointment as the club's new head coach.
They are currently in the best run of form of Maresca's tenure so far, winning their last six games in all competitions and going unbeaten in their last nine matches.
Maresca's side are currently second in the Premier League and four points adrift of leaders Liverpool, who appear to be the early favourites to win the title this season heading into the second half of the season.
Chelsea's objective was to finish in the Champions League qualification places come May 2025. Talk of any challenge for the title was off the cards heading into the season, with the Blues also eyeing Conference League silverware.
However, with Chelsea's form consistently improving and ensuring they keep pace with Liverpool, talk of whether the Blues are in a race for the title has increased week on week.
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Maresca has refused to accept Chelsea are part of any race and continues to focus day by day and game by game.
Enzo Maresca
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But after experiencing success at Manchester City and Leicester City, Maresca knows what it is like to win titles. So at what point will Chelsea allow themselves to say they are part of a title race?
Maresca responded: "The good thing is that I like to think on the day by day, so in which moment something can change I don’t know, I don’t know.
"The main focus for me is, and it’s not something I say because I have to say that, it’s because I really think that, because it’s the only way to improve me and to improve the players, just to focus on what we can do better in terms of training sessions, improving players and improving the team. This is the only main focus for me. Then in which moment we can think of something different, I don’t know."
On knowing the moments of thinking 'yes, this is on' to have the chance of winning a title, Maresca added: "Yeah, absolutely. You can smell that, you can feel that and probably this is the reason why I said we are not ready. We don’t feel that and we don’t smell that in this moment. As I said, hopefully soon we can be there. But in this moment, this is one of the reasons why I think we are not there.
"Also because I like to convince myself and the players that the only way to fight and compete for something is just to be focused on the day by day. When you start to think about two or three days, one month, two months, it’s the beginning of the bad times."
No time to rest. pic.twitter.com/1BuRJoYMmp
— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) December 13, 2024
Chelsea have Brentford in the Premier League up next to think about. They've not beaten Thomas Frank's side in the league in their last five attempts, so that's Maresca's focus for now.
But the 44-year-old has lifted the lid on when Chelsea could start to believe if they remain in the hunt heading into the latter weeks of the season - they have to smell and feel the feeling before they can convince themselves that there is a chance.