Maresca says he ‘expected more’ from Reece James and admits Chelsea lack ‘real leaders’ | OneFootball

Enzo Maresca admits he “expected more” from Reece James in terms of leadership, with the Chelsea captain having battled back from his latest injury problem.

James returned from a hamstring problem against Liverpool last Sunday, his first appearance of the season, and Maresca has revealed the full back will not be able to play two games a week for the foreseeable future.

The 24-year-old missed Chelsea’s Conference League victory over Panathinaikos on Thursday but is expected to feature against Newcastle tomorrow, despite Maresca openly criticising his lack of leadership.

“I spoke with him and I expected from him more in terms of leadership, inside the changing room and for different kinds of things,” he admitted.

“He’s on the way, he’s doing well, he’s progressing but from Reece I expected more also in terms of leadership.

“Most of the time when they are captain, they think that because they are captain they have more, ‘because I am the captain, I expect that you give me more’.

“For me, because you are the captain you have to give more. You have to give more than the rest. And sometimes it’s, ‘okay, I am the captain I can give less’, no.

“He’s one of the captains and I expected from him, and his teammates expected from him, to give always more in terms of leadership in general.”

Maresca also conceded that Chelsea are lacking leaders within the group, with fears it may hamper their strong start to the season in all competitions.

“He [James] is a reserved guy, as you said, but not only him,” Maresca continued.

“When you don’t have a proper leader, you need to build that.

“I think we don’t have a proper leader. We don’t have those guys… probably Tosin is one of the guys that is. So the rest we need to build them.

“Reece is there, he’s on the way but he’s not there. So he needs to make an effort in that one.

“The one that is doing fantastic in this kind of thing is Levi [Colwill]. Levi probably at the beginning of the season was not a leader but now you can see that he is one of the guys that is always speaking. We need to build that.

“We need as much as we have, then it’s perfect. Marc Cucurella is one of the guys, so we need more and more.

“This something that also goes with the age. Probably in one or two years, three years some of them will be better in that.

“But, as I said, if they are not there we need to help them to understand, not only the football side, also leadership side that they need to grow.”