“A serious coach” – Chelsea legend says something many Blues might not agree with

Enzo Maresca is still dividing opinion at Chelsea. Despite a Club World Cup win and a top 4 finish last year, as well as an overall bright start to this campaign, there are a lot of doubters about the Italian coach.

Zola backs fellow Italian to be major success at Chelsea

Chelsea icon Gianfranco Zola speaking on the pitch at Stamford Bridge.

One person who isn’t in any doubt about him is club legend Gianfranco Zola. He claims he saw the coach’s talent before he had even come to Stamford Bridge.

“I didn’t know him personally before he came to Chelsea, but I had followed what he did at Leicester and could see that we were dealing with a serious coach,” Zola said.

“He’s worked with and for [Arrigo] Sacchi, Manuel Pellegrini, [Pep] Guardiola. He’s had an excellent grounding.”

There are a lot of positives about Maresca which nobody can dispute – he seems to have a lot of respect from the players and as Zola says, he’s got a great background in terms of people he’s worked under.

However many Blues fans still aren’t delighted with the football he has his teams playing, and there are other gripes about his rotation policy and team selection in general. There’s also a sense he doesn’t get the best out of our star player, Cole Palmer.

It will be very interesting to see how feelings change through the course of the coach’s second year in charge.

In other news…

Chelsea’s social media silence over one player this week was very notable – it doesn’t look like things are getting sorted out in this case anytime soon.

Chelsea managed to get a player into the Premier League team of the week in the week just gone – but it’s not the sort of player you want to see in there. Read this article and it will all make sense…