Shortly after Enzo Maresca was named Chelsea’s head coach in July 2024, we reached out to his agent for some pointers before our first interview with him.

We were set to meet Maresca in Atlanta, Georgia, during Chelsea’s summer tour in the U.S., and we wanted to know what topics would pique his interest during our conversation.

“Tactics. He loves discussing tactics. If you delve into tactical questions, he’ll engage deeply,” his agent advised.

Maresca is not just a tactical enthusiast; he’s also adept at shaping narratives during press conferences. This was evident after Chelsea’s recent victory over Everton, where he expertly controlled the post-match dialogue.

During a calculated move, Maresca addressed speculation about his rapport with Chelsea’s management, referring to the “worst 48 hours” caused by some individuals’ lack of “support” leading up to their win at Stamford Bridge. He confirmed this strategic revelation while speaking yesterday, ahead of Chelsea’s upcoming Premier League clash with Newcastle at St James’ Park.

Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca put the cat among the pigeons when he declared he had a ‘lack of support’ at the club after last Saturday’s win over Everton 

Maresca celebrates the win over Everton – shortly before dropping his bombshell 

An hour after his Everton outburst, club sources were playing it down as an ‘emotional reaction to an emotional win’ from their head coach. Yesterday, in a sign that the disharmony behind the scenes at Stamford Bridge is unlikely to disappear any time soon, Maresca directly contradicted those claims by telling us: ‘What I said, it was not an emotional reaction. It was not an emotional reaction. I said what I said. Full stop.’

Still, mystery surrounds what prompted his original planned outburst. Maresca categorically insisted yesterday that he has no intention of leaving Chelsea for Manchester City in the event of Pep Guardiola’s exit this summer, describing those suggestions as ‘100 per cent speculation’.

Maresca assisted Guardiola during City’s Treble-winning season of 2022-23 and recently switched to be represented by the ‘super agent’ Jorge Mendes – a move which raised a few eyebrows.

Maresca mentioned several times during the broadcast section that his contract runs until 2029 – Chelsea also hold the option of an extra year – and so in our separate written section, Daily Mail Sport asked Maresca whether he would sign a new deal if offered one.

‘If the club offered me a new contract? This is a question for the club if I deserve a new contract,’ he said. He then turned the tables on us by asking whether we deserved a new contract with our newspapers. Fair enough, it is an awkward question for anyone to answer.

Yet we were only fishing for the reason behind Maresca’s reaction to beating Everton last weekend because he has since repeatedly refused to elaborate upon it. If his intention was to create vague chaos, then he succeeded in that. It has been a strange week, to say the least, and so the probing continued.

Is he annoyed that his superiors, such as the co-sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart, debate his decisions during their regular debriefs after matches? Chelsea had suffered a winless start to December against Leeds, Bournemouth and Atalanta before beating Everton, and his strange substitutions had contributed to that disappointing spell.

‘We have seven, eight coaching staff that analyse minute after minute of every game but for sure you can take suggestions from anyone,’ Maresca said. Not that, then.

The manager doubled down on his outburst on Friday saying it was not driven by emotion

Does he want a greater say in transfers at Chelsea? ‘No, no, absolutely no,’ he said. ‘No, no, no. I’m happy with the squad. The reason why I signed with this club, if you remember I have said many times, is because I think the squad is very good.’ Not that either, then.

Whatever the issue, Chelsea are relatively relaxed because, one: Maresca is contracted until 2030 including their one-year option, and two: they believe their organisation is designed to withstand any body blow. The coach is there to coach and insiders would like Maresca to concentrate on that.

When Mauricio Pochettino was Chelsea manager, he used to have his assistant, Jesus Perez, walk in with him for pressers before sitting at the front of the room in a reserved seat. Maresca likewise has Roberto Vitiello join him, though he is somewhat more incognito, entering at the back and sitting in the shadows. 

Vitiello was in attendance yesterday to listen to Maresca suggest ‘the club’ ought to be answering the odd question we were asking of him, like our contract extension enquiry.

Were Maresca working in another country, that might be possible. Elsewhere in Europe, such as Italy’s Serie A, Germany’s Bundesliga and Spain’s La Liga, sporting directors agree to interviews, speak on television, go on radio, stop in mixed zones and appear on podcasts.

In the Premier League, however, sporting directors tend to work in silence, leaving the head coach to act as the one and only club spokesperson put up multiple times per week.

Maresca is estimated to have conducted close to 300 separate interviews this season already. He averages 10 per game, including his pre and post-match press conferences, but closer to 15 for the bigger televised clashes. He will have a great deal of speaking to do before this summer, and tries not to speak more than he is contractually obliged. 

Indeed, those of us who spent a month in the United States covering Chelsea’s run to the Club World Cup final with Paris Saint-Germain were surprised when Maresca did not do a sit-down interview before that showdown. Instead, we spoke with the affable Marc Cucurella at Chelsea’s team hotel in New York.

Maresca flies to America for the Club World Cup – but he didn’t do an interview with the British press ahead of the final

Maresca has been good for Chelsea, winning the Conference League (above) and the Club World Cup in the summer

Luciano Moggi was a key member of Juventus’ executive team when Maresca was playing for the Italian giants in the early 2000s, and he never needed a second invitation to speak.

When Maresca courted controversy for how he celebrated scoring a late equaliser in the Turin derby – he performed a bull-horn celebration while rampaging around the pitch, in reference to the symbol on the Torino badge – who defended him? Moggi. 

‘We have no intention of fining him,’ said the Juve exec. ‘It is no big deal, he didn’t mean to offend anyone. He saw (Torino scorer Marco) Ferrante doing it and he wanted to see if he could do it as well.’

There is another amusing story to do with that 2-2 derby draw, too. At the full-time whistle, Maresca made a dash for the changing room, not wishing to hang around to feel the consequences of his actions as scraps began to occur between opponents. Torino players apparently took to nicknaming him ‘Marescappa’ – scappa meaning to ‘run away’ in Italian. A few at Chelsea feel their head coach has similarly created significant drama and then fled from it without regret or an explanation.

They have been good for each other since teaming up, both Chelsea for Maresca and Maresca for Chelsea, but it would appear there is work to do on improving their relationship if the Italian is indeed set to stay beyond this summer as he promised yesterday.