The inside story of how Maresca turned it around at Chelsea

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There is never a quiet week at Chelsea and this last one has been no exception.

After the 3-1 home defeat to Brighton, questions were being asked about Enzo Maresca’s future. Seven days later, he was sprinting down the touchline to celebrate with his players after Estevao Willian scored a late winner against Premier League champions Liverpool.

During another dramatic week in west London, there has also been the first Champions League game at Stamford Bridge for two and a half years, the return of Jose Mourinho, mounting injury problems, three red cards and a debate about whether Maresca really did say Liverpool were impossible to stop.

More on that later, but nothing is impossible as his players proved on Saturday.

First things first, it was difficult to escape the mood of doom and gloom on September 27 after Chelsea threw away a half-time lead against Brighton just a week after losing away at Manchester United.

They had been in control until Trevoh Chalobah was sent off at the start of the second half and Maresca’s substitutions after the red card seemed to hand the initiative to Brighton.

Chelsea’s executive football leadership team usually head for the home dressing room after every game, but, if you wanted to, you could read more into the way they were striding across the pitch as they headed for the tunnel after a third defeat in four games.

The full debrief lasted considerably longer than the time it took for Maresca to emerge for his post-match news conference to tell the waiting reporters that the discussions had been “nothing completely different compared to other games”.

It was not until the following evening that reports started to emerge that it was going to be business as usual and no panic buttons were going to be pressed.

Chelsea were backing their head coach and his position would only be evaluated, as is common practice, at the end of the season and not in September after six league games.

With Mourinho due back in a matter of hours, it was important the message went out that the club were behind Maresca and there was still all to play for this season.

When Maresca spoke to the media on Monday, he did so knowing that he was being backed, in public and in private.

As his pre-match media duties were for a Champions League game, his press conference was at Stamford Bridge and not at the training ground in Cobham. It was held in the Drake Suite and there were pictures of Chelsea’s title-winning managers, including three of Mourinho, on the walls.

Maresca, who, like most managers, is far happier working with his players rather than facing the media, took the occasion in his stride and said all the right things.

He said it was a privilege to come up against Mourinho and he hoped that one day he would have the same kind of success the Portuguese manager had enjoyed at Chelsea.

There were noticeably more journalists at Mourinho’s press conference in the same room – named after Ted Drake, Chelsea’s first title-winning manager – later on the same day.

Mourinho is box office and charmed everyone, delivering a series of soundbites and even taking time to embrace press and accreditation officer Thresa Conneely, who has been working at the club for 48 years.

“Of course, I will always be a Blue,” he said. “I am part of their history and they are part of my history. I helped them to become a bigger Chelsea and they helped me become a bigger Jose.”

Maresca was no match for an old hand like Mourinho when it came to charming the media but he came out on top on Tuesday night as Chelsea beat Benfica 1-0 in a scrappy game settled by a first-half Richard Rios own goal.

It wasn’t vintage Chelsea but the result was more important than the performance, although there was a third sending off in four games.

This time it was Joao Pedro who saw red but his second yellow-card offence was in the final minute of added time so it had no bearing on the result of the game.

Mourinho doesn’t usually smile after defeats but this was a special night for the self-styled ‘Special One’ and one which also showed that Maresca was more than capable of handling the pressure of the expectation and responsibility that goes hand-in-hand with managing a club like Chelsea.

While Mourinho was flying home to Lisbon, Maresca’s thoughts had already turned to preparing for Chelsea’s toughest test of the season, against big-spending champions Liverpool at Stamford Bridge on Saturday.

Liverpool’s problems had generated almost as many column inches as Chelsea’s stuttering form and one of the main talking points at Maresca’s pre-match press conference on Friday was what he had actually meant when he seemed to say last month that it would be impossible for anyone to catch Liverpool.

Maresca was well-prepared for his media duties and he remembered word-for-word exactly what he had said. He clarified his comments, pointing out that he had said Liverpool would be impossible to catch if they kept winning all their games, as they had been doing when he made his disputed comments.

Far from being unbeatable, Liverpool, like all sides, had “vulnerability”.

By the time they arrived in London, Liverpool had lost back-to-back games – against Crystal Palace and Galatasaray – and it was evident that Chelsea and their fans were very much up for the occasion when the game kicked off at 5.30pm.

Not even virtually every Tube station near the ground being closed for the whole weekend spoiled what turned out to be a very special occasion for everyone associated with Chelsea.

Maresca got every big decision right – unless you are going to take exception to his two yellow cards – and his players produced their best performance since they outclassed and outmuscled Paris Saint-Germain in the Club World Cup final in July.

Much has been made of the fact that Chelsea players may be tired after their summer exertions in the United States, but it was the Liverpool players – many of whom had been on a summer tour to Hong Kong and Japan – who looked like they could have done with a longer summer holiday.

There is something irresistible about Chelsea under Maresca when they play on the front foot, and although either side could have won the game in the closing stages, Estevao’s late winner was well-deserved considering how well Chelsea had played, especially when many observers, including their own fans, had been expecting a Liverpool victory.

Moises Caicedo was the player of the match but there were players in blue shirts all over the pitch who produced standout performances.

Unfortunately for Chelsea supporters who are now craving more of the same, the international break means there is not a game until the trip to Nottingham Forest a week on Saturday.

If Chelsea had lost to Liverpool, the vacuum of the next two weeks would have been filled with debates about Maresca, transfers, injuries and the Club World Cup.

As it is, Maresca – and the players who are not on international duty – can enjoy a few days off. And the same goes for the overworked reporters who cover the club that never sleeps.

This news was originally published on this post .

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