Enzo Maresca has clarified once and for all that Chelsea’s target is to qualify for the Champions League this season – and he called a Cobham-wide meeting with more than 100 employees including his players to make sure nobody inside the training ground is thinking otherwise.
The Blues are currently sixth in the Premier League as they travel to Aston Villa on Saturday and know that the positions for Europe’s elite competition are likely to go to fifth.
After muddled messaging previously left Chelsea’s supporters confused as to their ambitions this term, Maresca outlined: ‘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.’
The Italian went on to reveal how he gathered everyone at Cobham in the canteen previously at 10am sharp as he urged his players to recognise the hard work happening behind the scenes for their benefit. That included using the kitchen workers who arrive in the early hours to cut up their breakfast fruit as an example.
‘More than one month ago, I prepared a meeting with all the people inside the building, the kitchen staff, the groundsmen, the kit men, everyone,’ Maresca said. ‘I asked them to push until the end because our target was to bring this club back into the Champions League.’
After Mail Sport pressed Maresca for more details, he continued: ‘I went to bed at 11pm, 12am, and I woke up at 4am, 5am. I couldn’t sleep more. I started to think, ‘It could be a good idea in the morning to arrive and pull all the people together in the building and share this message.’
Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca has revealed details of a 100-person meeting that was called at Cobham
The Blues are targeting a Champions League finish this season, with Maresca now making the message clear
The club are currently one point off the top four, but a fifth-place finish will likely be enough
‘So I text Kev (Kevin Campello, head of first-team operations). ‘Kev, everyone in the canteen at 10am.’ I said to the players in that meeting, ‘When I arrive here at 7am, there are people from the kitchen cutting the fruit in the same way – cut, cut, cut, cut. There are people behind who you cannot see, who are working every day to help you to reach your target.’ It’s true. The players, they do not see that. I tried to convince them that there are people behind who work hard and we need to push together to reach our target.’
Maresca insisted his messaging has been consistent since he arrived in the summer, though this was the first time he had explicitly admitted that Chelsea are targeting a top-four finish after previously trying to manage expectations.
He added: ‘I will tell you again because it is something in the last week that I can smell: when you say something when you win, you look humble, and when you say exactly the same message after you don’t win, you look like you lack ambition.
‘I’ve never lacked ambition. I’m not here to survive, I’m here to win games. I’m here to bring this club to fight for titles. 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.’
Noni Madueke is the latest Chelsea star to join Nicolas Jackson, Marc Guiu, Wesley Fofana, Romeo Lavia and others on the treatment table as they head to Villa.