By OkayGoal 
Dear Enzo Maresca,
Please STOP making enemies with the Chelsea fan base. Please STOP picking fights with us. This will only ever end in one way.
The biggest issue at Chelsea right now is that this squad his been built without balance, without leaders, without players with strong mentalities, and without quality experience. It’s that simple. I’ll die on that hill.
Enzo Maresca is a secondary problem. The players are a secondary problem.
But what Maresca is doing by making comments like he made after the Ipswich game yesterday, is he is switching fan focus and energy onto himself even more, and that only ever ends one way.
I mean, you can’t sack the fans, can you? You know, the paying fans who go to Stamford Bridge every week and travel to away games every other? The ones you need on your side, right? Fans worldwide as just as important, but the voices he will hear week in week out are those who go to matches. He NEEDS them.
I’ve seen people try and claim that Maresca’s words are taken out of context and I’m sorry but that’s desperate straw clutching at the very least. Come on now.
However you want to spin it, Maresca is blaming the fans here for Ipswich’s second goal…
“I think we lost a little bit of confidence, because we conceded, probably because of the environment,” Maresca said. “This is the moment that you have to continue doing the right things and don’t change the plan. Also because we are a team that most of the time, our goal kick will start from playing short.
“The second goal, we decide to play long, because the environment is there, and we concede the second one. You have to be strong, you have to continue with the things that you are doing.”
The reporter then said:
‘I just wanted to ask you about that, specifically with the second goal, because it felt like after the first goal went in, the crowd, the atmosphere, everything changed. Is it an issue with the players and how they responded to that? Do you want more from the supporters in that moment? You mentioned also the goal kick. I presume that’s not something you wanted to see?’
Maresca responded:
“No, it’s just for sure not, but I can understand, because probably we conceded the goal, and they decided to play a long ball. But sometimes, I said many times, sometimes you go long, it doesn’t mean that you are going to control something. The second goal we conceded is for that.
“And then in terms of fans, I said many times, we are stronger with our fans, we are a better team. It’s up to them to decide the way. For sure today, probably, with the 0-1, 0-2, it’s normal to be the way they were.”
The reporter then circled back to the same question later on:
Why do you think that the environment, as you say, has become an issue here?
Maresca answered:
“I didn’t say that the environment is an issue for us, because I always said that with our fans, with us, we are a better team. They have been there all season, all the way. For sure today, in the moment that we are in a difficult moment, you can expect them that they are not happy, but in the same moment, probably it’s the moment that we need the players, especially the players that are inside the pitch, it’s the moment that they probably need more support.”
Hang on, did you just say ‘I didn’t say that the environment is an issue for us’?
Wait, you did mate, you definitely did…
Just above, he said: ‘We lost a little bit of confidence, because we conceded, probably because of the environment.’
And then in the same sentence, he also said: ‘The second goal, we decide to play long, because the environment is there, and we concede the second one.’
I’m absolutely baffled by this. Not smart at all.
The fans don’t dictate how you play. The fans didn’t force Robert Sanchez to kick it long. If you have a way of playing and you believe in it, then you play that way despite what anyone else says. Are you going to start blaming pundits for criticising the players as well and use them as a reason that they don’t play how you tell them to play? Come on, man.
Just please stop this nonsense. I wanted, and still do want Maresca to work, purely because I don’t want to keep seeing managers coming and going, but he’s really not helping himself in the slightest.
His football has often been far too slow, laboured, and bland. He is getting his players to spam crosses against low blocks with nobody in there who is good in the air to get on the end of them. He is discouraging individuality and flair, and you can argue that many players have actually gotten worse since he came here – because many actually have.
I always go back to the first half of the season when our football looked good and we were getting results. But please, for anyone who wants to highlight this time as a ‘oh we were all praising Maresca then and saying our Chelsea are back’ please go and watch the games again. Chelsea were playing much more open, much more in transition, and the games were much more end to end (I’m not saying that football was better by the way because actually it was very chaotic). I even remember writing that at the time. If anything, it was more Mauricio Pochettino that Maresca. And no, I don’t want Pochettino back or think he is a better manager than Maresca or any other daft comments someone wants to try and make here, but you cannot deny that our style of play back then was more Pochettino than Maresca, because it was. Since we have been playing more ‘Maresca-ball’ then the results have dropped and our form has been nothing short of dire. Is that just a coincidence? Does he just not have the players to play his style of football? Have the injuries had a really bad effect? Or have the players just not learned his ways yet? You know what, probably all of the above I would answer yes to, to give him the benefit of the doubt, for sure. Maybe if he had a top striker in the box and a few more players in to play his way then we would be succeeding now, absolutely.
But at the end of the day, he is the head coach of Chelsea Football Club, he knew what he was taking on, he knew the pressure would be there from a fan base who are mainly used to recent success and used to strong mentalities and watching winners in the dugout and out on the pitch, he knew the players he had in his squad and at the end of the day, it will fall on the head coach if he is not getting results. It has to. That is his job, to coach the players and get the best out of them. He’s had plenty long enough now to implement his system and no the fans aren’t the ones stopping that ‘system’.
And in amongst all of this he is picking fights with fans, it really isn’t a good look and will turn even the biggest Maresca fans against him eventually. It already is, I’m seeing it.
I’m not shouting Maresca out and you all know my reasons for that. But I have so many concerns with what I am seeing right now and I don’t see how we go forward with him, I really don’t.
Yes, I reiterate, the main problems are above him and that is where our focus should be. But Maresca needs to stop pulling that focus back towards him.
Finally, our guy Danny Windsor noticed something that he posted on X last night…
He said:
‘Anyone who is Maresca in still.
‘17 points in 14 for Potter, 20 in 16 for Maresca.
‘Potter had worse to deal with both injuries and changes at the club and got us through in the CL knockouts.
‘Potter was knocked out of cups by City.’