Enzo Maresca has clarified Chelsea’s objective for this season by declaring once and for all that their target is to qualify the Champions League.
The Blues are currently sixth in the Premier League, and know that finishing fifth is likely to be enough to qualify for Europe’s elite competition.
Not wanting to leave any room for misunderstanding, Maresca said ahead of facing Aston Villa away on Saturday: ‘We spent almost all of our season in the top four. Now we have just 13 games to go. The target for us is to finish in the top four, to finish in the best way.
‘We are going to try to do our best to achieve that, knowing that the difficult moment we have now is probably because of the injury situation. We have five or six players – significant players – that are out. Arsenal have injuries. (Manchester) City have injuries. We are going to try our best to win games, even with the amount of injuries we have.
‘I’m not here to survive, I’m here to win games. I’m here to bring this club to fight for titles. The problem is, when you win games, you look humble, and when you don’t win games, you look like you lack ambition. Since day one, when I joined this club, my intention was to win games, win titles and to bring this club where this club deserves to be. I’ve said this since day one.’
Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca is targeting a place in next season’s Champions League
Chelsea are without Noni Madueke as they travel to Villa, the winger having joined Nicolas Jackson, Wesley Fofana, Romeo Lavia and others on the treatment table. Madueke is expected to be out until after the next international break.
‘I’m ambitious,’ Maresca continued. ‘The club is ambitious. We have the same manager, same players, same owners and same sporting directors from two months ago when we were second in the league. Nothing has changed. The only thing that has changed is we are dealing with many injuries and this has affected a little bit the level of the team.’
Maresca, pictured at a training session this week, said: ‘We will try our best to achieve that’
The Chelsea boss has previously claimed that ‘nobody at the club’, including chairman Todd Boehly (pictured), had ‘asked me for the Champions League this year’
Maresca conceding that his is targeting a top-four finish is seemingly a major backtrack from his previous claims earlier in this season.
Speaking in August, he said: ‘What I can say is that nobody from the club asked me for the Champions League this year. Nobody said that we need to finish in the first four. What they said is that we need to arrive and compete, step by step.’
Chelsea had looked well on course for a top-four finish after the first half of the season.
However, they have only won two of their last nine league games.