Pundit tells Chelsea to keep Maresca if he does 2 things this season | OneFootball

When he was a player, we have to admit we didn’t necessarily imagine Dean Ashton becoming a great pundit, but he’s proving us all wrong with his stints on Sky Sports at the moment.

The former Norwich and West Ham striker watched Chelsea’s game against Brighton in the FA Cup on Saturday and had some really insightful views on what’s going wrong with Enzo Maresca’s team at the moment.

We already covered his views on Romeo Lavia, which really went to the heart of what’s wrong with this team at the moment. But he’s got views on all sorts of our issues as they become clear as the season goes on.

You can see Ashton speaking in the clip embedded here:

Ashton points to “1-0” comments from Maresca as key

Dean Ashton talks about Chelsea on Sky Sports News.

Ashton is still heavily backing Enzo Maresca and says he’s seen enough progress to mean the Italian should not be under pressure:

“I can see how it’s going to work. It’s then just if you have the patience to see it through,” he said.

Asked if Maresca should be kept for next season if Chelsea achieve their aims of making the top 4 and winning the Europa Conference League, Ashton was emphatic in the affirmative:

“Yes. I do, to bring in so many new players and a new manager and to see a genuine improvement and come away with something at the end of the season… if you can’t keep your job after that I don’t know where we are.”

Well, it’s nice to see someone being positive about our predicament right now. But even that hypothetical is assuming we do reach the top 4 and do win the Conference League – if we play like we did on Saturday, neither of those things is happening.