Guillem Balague’s piece for the BBC today is all about Enzo Maresca and Chelsea’s journey towards signing him.
One of the club’s priorities when picking a new coach in the spring was finding someone who was willing to work with the players the club has, and someone willing to accept the transfer decisions of those at the top. In Maresca they had a man who told them in his first interview: “I love these players.”
Job done on that front, in that case. He was also apparently “aligned” on every transfer decision the club made this summer, except for one. In perhaps the juiciest part of the story, Balague reveals that Maresca had serious doubts over the move for Joao Felix:
“‘I don’t do miracles,’ is one of Maresca’s favourite sayings, and you can imagine him pointing that out about a player who has struggled to fulfil their potential. The club though, were convinced [Felix] could be useful and that Maresca’s detailed work would make him better. Eventually the coach accepted the challenge.”
Chelsea fans still have major Felix doubts
A lot of Chelsea fans felt the same thing about the Felix move, and so far they’ve been proven right. He’s only getting minutes against teams in the Conference League, and doesn’t look to be troubling the first team anytime soon. He’s had no Premier League starts, and hasn’t even got off the bench in the last month.
But clearly those at the top thought his ability was worth a punt, and as Balague points out, he’s on “much lower wages” than he was before. Maresca seems determined to improve players individually, so we’re excited to see what he can make of the Portugal star in the long run.
