Chelsea face Southampton tomorrow, which led to a question from the media in Enzo Maresca’s press conference today about Lesley Ugochukwu.
The Chelsea midfielder is on loan with the Saints, but hasn’t been getting much game time, and responded last week by deleting all his social media posts with the club in it.
The assumption is of course now that he will be recalled in January and sent on a new loan, and Enzo was asked if this would be the case:
“I have no idea at the moment. I have no idea about the loans, about the transfer window. Before January, I think we have seven Premier League games. It’s too many games to be thinking about that,” the coach responded.
Maresca answer shows the difference in thinking between
It’s a typical manager answer which shows the divide between what their day to day is and what fans think their day to day is, especially at Chelsea where sporting directors are taking the lead on this sort of issue.
Maresca sits down and plans training and thinks about the next day or two, maybe just as far ahead as the next game. He’s got enough on his plate working with the day to day and the specifics. While fans are thinking about our transfer plans for next summer, working out what we will do with Andrey Santos when he comes back from Strasbourg and where Estevao Willian will play in the team next season; Maresca is more worried about who is marking who at corners tomorrow night.
We’re sure someone is taking note of Ugochukwu’s issues and drawing up alternative plans for January – but at this stage it’s certainly not Maresca. As he says, he will deal with that problem when there’s something he can actually do about it.
