Enzo Maresca is more Guardiola than Ancelotti – and “open-minded” players love it

The international break was pretty agonising for Chelsea fans, who wanted to see their new look team in action, and last week’s return to league games against Bournemouth wasn’t enough to keep us satisfied for long.

Lots of other teams have played this midweek, while Chelsea have enjoyed one of their last remaining free midweeks until about April.

The club used the chance to speak to Enzo Maresca about his time in charge so far in a really long and interesting interview where he claimed his team are streets ahead of where he expected:

“We are ahead of where I expected, to be honest. Since I have started, the players have been open-minded and they are taking in all of the information,” the coach said – and we think that’s crucial.

“Off the ball, we have already pressed in four or five different ways. On the ball, it depends on how the opposition defend because we try to find a different solution. Against Crystal Palace and in the friendly game against Inter Milan, we played in one way and then in the others we played in another way.

“We try to adapt to how the opposition defend and how they attack and prepare for the game.”

Hands on Maresca more Pep than Carlo

It’s perhaps a situation a little similar to the famous story of what happened at Bayern Munich in the mid 2010s. When Pep Guardiola left, Carlo Ancelotti was brought in as his replacement, but his laissez faire attitude in training and to management in general, while perfect for Real Madrid and certain other teams, didn’t fit at all with the precise Bavarian machinery of Bayern, and looked particularly sloppy given it followed the obsessive Guardiola’s reign.

In this case, the much more hands on and switched on Maresca has taken over from the “vibes man” Pochettino, and the players are maybe enjoying that new level of detail from the Italian.