Moments after Chelsea’s narrow win over Copenhagen in the Conference League, head coach Enzo Maresca had already cast his sights on Sunday afternoon’s visit of Leicester City.
The Blues edged past the Danes 2-1 on Thursday evening in the first leg of their round of 16 tie, with the second and decisive match coming at Stamford Bridge in less than a week. Before that, though, is the home match with the Foxes, the club Maresca left last summer to move to Chelsea.
Here is every word the Italian had to say to preview Sunday’s game.
You’re coming up against your good friend Ruud van Nistelrooy on Sunday. How does that feel?
“Ruud is a friend of mine. We played together and then after we have been in contact. When Leicester called, he thought to call me and we had a chat. I said to him that Leicester is a fantastic club run by fantastic people. I have said many times, I’m 30 years in football and it was probably the best people in football that I’d met. So I told him many good, positive things about Leicester.”
“In this moment, I’m focused on us. Now I’m here, I’m just thinking about us, how we can improve and then it’s more for Ruud, for the sporting director, for the owner to find a solution.”
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall will come up against his former club. What have you made of his time at Chelsea?
“At the beginning he struggled a little to accept that he was not playing many games. Now, probably after a while, he has realised that he has to be calm, he has to understand. At this moment he’s much better. He played an important game tonight from the start. That shows that I really trust Kiernan. Kiernan knows that Cole [Palmer] played there, Enzo [Fernandez] played there, Christo [Nkunku] played there. So we have many, many players in terms of quality in playing in that position.”
Any second thoughts about starting Moises Caicedo vs Leicester given he’s a yellow card from a two-game ban?
“No, no, no. I know that they said this to me, but at this moment for us, it’s about winning games. We need to win games, so we cannot plan giving Moi a rest thinking that he can play Arsenal. We need to win against Leicester and then we need to focus on how we can beat Arsenal. It’s just game by game and we need our best players on the pitch.”
Will you have a word with him before the Leicester game?
“The position of Moises, if you see his background, last year he had 11 to 12 yellow cards, the year before the same, because he’s a midfielder. You are in the traffic. Sometimes you have to make some fouls. It’s normal. Hopefully, he can avoid that until the end, knowing that probably it’s difficult, but the good thing is that we have also Romeo [Lavia] now, he’s started with us already. He can be back. We need to be ready. Reece can be a midfielder like tonight so we’ll see.”
Have you sensed a shift in the last couple of games?
“To be honest, if you also analyse the Aston Villa defeat, what can you say? The performance was there, but in football you have to be clinical. We had so many chances we didn’t score. And when you don’t score at the end, it can cost you points. Winning games help. But our inside message has been always the same. We need to continue. We need to improve things. But for sure, when you win games, it helps.”
Some of your Leicester players came here to Denmark and they were pictured with a sign that said, “Enzo I miss you”. Did you see the sign?
“No, the only thing I can say is that I try to create a relationship with players where at the end, I feel very close to them and they probably feel very close to me. This is probably the only reason. I still speak with many of Leicester’s players because we had a fantastic season last year and I’m very close to some of them.
“I’ve been in football for more than 30 years. You struggle to find people so, so, so nice, that they care about the family, about the kids, about everything. They are fantastic. But the most important thing, let me say, is that we need our fans on Sunday – 95 minutes, 100 minutes, we need to win the game. That is the most important thing.”
Will Romeo Lavia be fit for Sunday?
“Romeo could be fit, but not playing from the start.”
