ENZO MARESCA has strategically transformed Chelsea into Premier League title contenders.
Cole Palmer might have rolled his eyes at the idea, while Noni Madueke has played down the Blues’ chances, but a 5-1 win over Southampton midweek has got pundits talking.
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They sit in second place, seven points behind leaders Liverpool, and are poised to challenge should the Reds falter.
Much of their success is down to deep thinker Maresca, 44, who arrived at the club in the summer.
In February, Gary Neville called Chelsea the ‘billion-pound bottle jobs’ after they lost to Liverpool in the Carabao Cup final.
But only ten months later, they are title contenders under the impressive guidance of Maresca.
The Italian came through the legendary Italian coaching centre, Coverciano.
It was there his love of chess was revealed, where he compared the beautiful game to the ancient board game.
That encouraged the tactician to write his thesis comparing the two and their similarities.
His dissertation was fittingly called, ‘Football and Chess’.
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“There are a lot of similarities,” Maresca revealed.
“The most important is positional play and strategy. For a coach, it’s important to have the mentality of a chess player: develop a plan, study counter moves, choose the arrangement of the pieces.”
Maresca’s philosopy
‘The arrangement of the pieces’ was evident in Maresca’s team selection at the St Mary’s.
Joao Felix and Christopher Nkunku were drafted in, with a potentially overloaded Nicolas Jackson on the bench.
With a large squad of talented stars at his disposal, Romeo Lavia, Enzo Fernandez, and Jadon Sancho are all rotated.
It’s not uncommon to see a totally different side selected for Premier League or Europa Conference League.
Maresca is not stuck to one philosophy. Quite often, he will pick a team suited to the opposition his team’s play.
As a strategist, he makes subtle tweaks every week.
One example saw Moises Caicedo, reborn in central midfield this term, playing at right-back against Aston Villa.
That allowed the Ecuadorian to invert into midfield, when Chelsea were in possession, with Enzo Fernandez supporting the attack in a CAM position, and gave Cole Palmer more space.
If you’ve played 5D chess, a game that becomes increasingly complex through a series of alternate timelines, it’s comparable to how Maresca’s thought-process when Chelsea are in action.
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‘We’ve got our Chelsea back’
For a few years, they hadn’t under the Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali regime.
But at Southampton, the away support were fully behind their club singing, ‘We’ve got our Chelsea back.’
There was also a youthful exuberance about the team that played the Saints.
The average age of the team selected was 24 years and 162 days old.
Incredibly, that was the oldest first eleven Maresca has picked in this campaign – and the 14th youngest used by any Premier League club.
However, given the club’s transfer activity in recent windows, it was telling there were no Cobham graduates in the starting line-up.
Only Levi Colwill, who was tracked by Bayern Munich in the summer, was the only academy starlet in the squad.
Of course, given their players ages, should the squad develop how Maresca wants it to, they should come into their prime in the years to come and mount consistent title challenges.
Although, they won’t admit that yet.
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“We are up for it but whether we are in it or not is a different question,” Madueke said.
“We are taking every game as it comes.”
Goals, goals, goals
Chelsea have found a new lease of life under Maresca, thanks to a different style of play being implemented.
Goaded in the past for being ‘Cole Palmer FC’, they are far from that. There are attacking threats all over the pitch now.
When Sancho netted against Southampton, he became the 15h different player to score for the West London giants.
Another mad stat is that they have already scored seven more goals (31) than they did in their entire 2022-23 season.
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Better still, if it’s entertainment and ska favourite Harry J All-Stars’ Liquidator you want, head down to Stamford Bridge, where the home side is averaging a club record 2.6 goals per match.
You never know. Come May, you might just see them lifting the Premier League trophy too.
