Enzo Maresca says Chelsea are not ‘puppies’ when asked about Mourinho’s horse analogy

I mean, press conferences these days see these reporters really digging for some wild content, right? That’s what has happened here anyway!

There is always an embargoed section of a press conference for some odd reason, and the quotes from it get released late at night on the same day of the conference.

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Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca had his pre-match press conference for tonight’s Premier League game against Southampton yesterday morning. We all saw some quotes going around from that. But then comes the embargoed quotes.

I feel like the reporters at the conference yesterday were really clutching at straws for some ‘out there’ content yesterday so they decided to bring up a historic Jose Mourinho quote.

The Portuguese coach used a horse analogy to describe Chelsea’s chances of winning the league back in 2013.14, which was his second spell as manager of Chelsea.

Mourinho allayed expectations by insisting the Blues were not in the running with Manchester City and Arsenal, saying: ‘Two horses and a little horse that still needs milk. A horse that next season can race.’

Chelsea went on to win the title the very next year under Mourinho and on Tuesday, Maresca, who has a three-year-old Golden Retriever called Ciro, used his dog to describe Chelsea’s growth.

Chelsea are not puppies

‘Because of the age, and because of how good the squad is, for me Chelsea in the next five to 10 years will be one of the teams or the team that is going to dominate English football,’ Maresca said. ‘This is what I said this to the club the first time I met them. I still think exactly the same.

‘I don’t think (Manchester) City are at the end of a cycle. They are in a bad moment, for sure. I’m more focussed on what we have here, that is good players, good squad, young age and this is the reason why I said, for me, for the next years, Chelsea can be an important club in English football.’

It was then while discussing Mourinho’s horse analogy that Maresca said: ‘The last 20 years, I have always been with two Golden Retrievers or at least one. I don’t know what kind of animals we are.’

Asked if Chelsea should be considered ‘puppies’ currently, Maresca answered: ‘No. I think we showed we are there and we are competing very well in all the competitions. This shows how mature they are in this moment.’

Quotes via The Daily Mail.