Enzo Maresca believes his attack’s improvement means nobody can accuse Chelsea of being Cole Palmer FC any more.
The nickname was coined by Mauricio Pochettino last season and soon came to be seen as a negative. It was on Maresca’s mind when he replaced Pochettino and the Italian is of the view that Chelsea, the highest goalscorers in the Premier League, have become less reliant on Palmer in the final third.
“Yes – and we are very happy,” the head coach said. “If you remember in my first press conference I said that we cannot rely on Cole for every game because it is not correct. He has to enjoy football.
“But if we prepare the season thinking Cole is the only solution then we are wrong. We work every day to allow Cole to be in situations where he can be the best and be good. You see that we move him from the right side to the left side, or from one side to the other side, because we want to put players in situations where they can be the best.”
Palmer collected his ninth goal of the season when Chelsea won 5-1 at Southampton on Wednesday, when Axel Disasi, Noni Madueke, Christopher Nkunku and Jadon Sancho also scored. Maresca, whose side are second before visiting Tottenham on Sunday, has enviable options up front. He praised Nkunku, Sancho, Madueke, Mykhailo Mudryk, Enzo Fernández, Nicolas Jackson, Pedro Neto and João Félix for lifting the pressure on Palmer.
“I don’t know if the players are better than last season,” the former Leicester manager said. “The only thing I can say is that since we started, with the right side with Noni and Pedro and the left side with Mischa [Mudryk] and Jadon, and Enzo, Cole, João the other day, Nico and Christo, the attacking players are doing well.”
Maresca was also effusive about Moisés Caicedo’s performance in midfield, saying that the Ecuador international was as good as Arsenal’s Declan Rice and Manchester City’s Rodri. “He is for sure now at that level,” he said. “No doubt. Unfortunately, Rodri is injured but Declan is playing. But I think Moisés can sit at that table with that kind of midfielder.”
Despite the growing positivity Maresca maintained that Chelsea were not in the title race. “We need to do so many other things good, not only scoring goals,” he said. “We need to avoid conceding goals. Overall, I think defensively we are doing quite well but we are just focused on Sunday’s game. We are not thinking about May or June, these kind of things, because it is too early. In football, everything can change very quick.”
