The full transcript from Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca’s pre-match press conference ahead of the Blues’ Carabao Cup fourth round tie with Wolves on Wednesday evening
Enzo Maresca has just completed his pre-match press conference ahead of Chelsea’s Carabao Cup fourth round tie away at Wolves.
The Blues are looking to bounce back from the defeat to Sunderland on Saturday afternoon with a victory at Molineux on Wednesday night. Maresca has just previewed the tie in his press conference, and Bobby Vincent has put together a full transcript of every word the Chelsea head coach had to say:
Liam Delap available?
Yes, he took part in a complete lead session yesterday and is available for tomorrow.
Obviously he hasn’t played any football, so not probably for the full 90 minutes?
No, 90 minutes, no. It’s I think two months now that he’s out, so he needs gradually back to 100%.
Wholesale changes again?
The reason why is because we need to rotate, we need to protect players because if we go with the same 11, we’re going to struggle during the season. So we need to rotate and probably we’re going to make some changes. I don’t know how many, but we’re going to make some changes.
As many as for Forest and Ajax?
I don’t know yet. For sure we’re going to make some changes. I don’t know now if nine, 10, like we did between Forest and Ajax. But for sure we’re going to make changes again because we need to do that.
And a chance maybe to rest Enzo, Moi [Caicedo] and Joao [Pedro], you said were carrying problems?
Yeah, probably they are players that need to be protected for many reasons. So probably tomorrow we’ll see. But yeah, Enzo, Moises, Joao, they are all players that for different reasons we need to protect them.
You spoke about consistency after the game the weekend. Is that something you’ve sat with players down and spoken to them about or are they perfectly aware of your thoughts on that?
No, I mentioned [that] because you need that. You need consistency if you want to have a good season. After four wins in a row, unfortunately we dropped points against Sunderland. But now we move on and we focus on tomorrow’s game.
The deeper you get into a competition, do you get more hungry to go all the way?
Yeah, absolutely. As you said, it’s three games away from the final. So we need to have the desire to play for that. As we said many times, we need to go game by game. Now the first one is Wolves tomorrow. We need to be focused on that. And then hopefully winning the game we can think about the next one.
There was some criticism of your long throw-in comments over the weekend. Now that Liam’s back in the reckoning, have you actually checked out his DNA to see if he’s also a king of throw-ins?
No, I said many times that as a human being you can say something, but then you have a million people that can interpret it in a different way. And what I can control is what I say. What I cannot control is the mind of people, how they can interpret it. I said that in this moment we are not looking for a long throw-in. Because I’m a manager, I love to evolve. Probably one day I will use that. These are my words.
Now if people interpret it in the wrong way, I cannot control. I’m not here to control what people think. So I didn’t ask Liam about a long throw-in. But again, not tomorrow. Probably one day we’re going to ask Liam. I said also that we can swap Liam with this guy [his dad, Rory Delap].
Only Arsenal have scored more from set-pieces this season…
Yeah, but we also concede, Arsenal also concede from set-pieces. Set-pieces for me is part of the game. You are going to score goals from set-pieces and you are going to concede goals from set-pieces. It’s good news that after Arsenal we are the team with the most goals.
And we’re going to try to continue to score goals, but not just in set-pieces. In this moment we are in the Premier League, the team with more goals. So that means that when we score goals, set-pieces or open play, probably we need to pay a little bit more attention in the goal that we are in this moment conceding.
Do you feel winning a cup is Chelsea’s best chance of a trophy this season?
I don’t know, I don’t know. I try to focus in game by game, no matter which competition it is. We try to go as far as we can.
Do you think this competition is very important though, or the domestic cups are very important for Chelsea this season to try and get a trophy, maybe because the league, you’re lacking that consistency that you spoke about? ‘
I think for Chelsea all the competitions are important. Chelsea has to try to win games and to try to win competitions. So for me personally, all the competitions are important.
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Are Joao Pedro’s struggles solely down to his fitness?
For sure the physical part is important. When you are not 100%, it’s difficult to compete, especially in this league. But I think Joao is not a problem at all. He’s going to score goals with us. He’s going to give us assists, knowing that Joao Pedro is not a No.9 that is going to score 20 goals each year.
It’s not Joao, he’s a fantastic player, he’s going to score goals for us, he’s going to give us assists. But it’s a different kind of nine, like this kind of nine that they score 20-25 goals each year like Lewandowski, Mbappe or Haaland. This is a different kind of No.9.
Do you have any players like that? Or do you think you need to spread the goals around?
Absolutely, yes. We said many times that the five players at the front, we need six, seven, eight, nine, ten goals each, in the way we have done last season.
It feels like a good time to talk about Pedro Neto, with two games coming up against Wolves. I just wanted to ask, he’s been with you for a little while now, what is he like as a character around the squad and around the dressing room?
He’s top, he’s very humble, working hard, he’s a very important player for us and we are very happy with Pedro. He’s exactly the same as other players, he needs to be always 100%, because in the moment that you drop a little bit, mentally or physically, in this league, it’s complicated.
Do you feel that you have a first-choice centre-back pairing at the moment and do you think you need one?
The reason why we are trying to rotate is because, first of all, we also need to manage players like, for instance, Wes Fofana, who is back from injury, Benoit [Badiashile], unfortunate that he’s injured again, but we try to manage him. And then we are tossing that this season, the other problem, Josh [Acheampong], Trev [Chalobah], we are trying to rotate a little bit for many reasons, but for sure in the moment that you are choosing a defender, for instance, last season we played, I think, five or six months with Wes, the first five or six months. It’s good because they can, you know, the combination, they can go together, but in this moment we are trying to rotate, and for sure, slowly, slowly, we get better. .
Would you rather be able to kind of have that consistency or do you think you are going to stick to the approach of changing it up?
Consistency is always better in any aspect, for players, for the team, for anyone.
