Enzo Maresca has surprisingly revealed that Chelsea’s owners haven’t told him he needs to qualify for the Champions League this season.
Maresca arrived from Leicester earlier this summer to replace Mauricio Pochettino and signed a five year deal at Stamford Bridge.
The Italian is preparing for his first competitive game in charge against Manchester City on Sunday in what is a vital season for the club.
Maresca says he’s not been told to finish in the top four
The Blues have failed to qualify for the Champions League for the past two seasons and really can’t afford to miss out for a third year running.
Despite Maresca’s lack of experience qualifying for the Champions League is a must in the eyes of the fans and surely those running the club.
However, in a surprising admission the Italian revealed that no one at the club has told him he needs to qualify for the Champions League this season.
“What I can say is that nobody from the club asked me for the Champions League this year,” he told reporters.
“Nobody said to me ‘Enzo, we need to finish in the first four,’ what they said was we need to, step by step, arrive and compete with that. For sure if you ask me, my dream is to compete with the teams that, at this moment, are dominating English football.
“This is my dream for sure, 100 per cent, but at the same time, we know that to close that gap, it’s not going to be automatic. You need to train and to work every day together.
“The only thing I can say is that nobody from the club said to me ‘we need to finish in the first four or we fail’ and the reason why we are looking for five years to build something important is because we want to be consistent.”
That admission is certainly a surprise given the owners have said in the past they want to consistently be qualifying for the Champions League.
If it’s the case that qualifying for the Champions League isn’t the be all and end all this season then that really is baffling and raises a lot of questions.
