Chelsea: Enzo Maresca in agreement with £100million valuation for 'top talent' | OneFootball

Wonderkid is giving his manager a selection headache

Enzo Maresca admitted he can see why Chelsea’s teen sensation Estevao Willian was valued by experts this week at more than £100million.

According to their formula, he is the second-most valuable teenager in world football, behind only Barcelona and Spain star Lamine Yamal, whose value they estimated at £307.4m.

Estevao has scored four goals in his last eight appearances for Chelsea and quicky become a fans’ favourite at Stamford Bridge.

He assisted Joao Pedro for Chelsea’s second goal in Saturday evening’s 3-0 Premier League win over Wolves just a minute after being introduced from the substitutes’ bench.

Reminded of the report that valued Estevao at more than £100m, Maresca said: “You can see that, absolutely. He is top, his talent.

“We are trying to help him to adapt and to give him the right minutes. He is doing fantastically. For this club in the next five to ten years, I think he will be a top, top player.”

While he is trying to manage Estevao’s minutes — he has not started in the Premier League since September — Maresca did accept that it is impossible to dampen down Chelsea fans’ excitement and the building expectation around Estevao’s impact at such a young age.

“Absolutely, yes,” he said. “I have said already that the reason why fans pay for their tickets is because they want to see players like Estevao, like Cole [Palmer]. People are happy when they are on the pitch.

“The only difference is that Estevao arrived from Brazil [and] needs a little bit to adapt. Slowly, slowly, for sure, he’s going to start games for us in the future.”