Chelsea insider on when Enzo Maresca’s first review is coming – and what he has to do to pass it | OneFootball

This week’s Chelsea Confidential is out, and as always it’s full of some juicy stuff.

Kieran Gill focuses on Enzo Maresca and his future – which to be fair has been the main talking point of the last week.

Maresca still months away from first performance review

Enzo Maresca embraces Alejandro Garnacho. (Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)

As always, a win eases the pressure, and a home victory against Benfica obviously lifts the weight off everyone. But there is no denying that tensions rose after a string of bad results – and a loss to Liverpool this weekend would send things trending in the wrong direction once again.

Gill claims that Maresca was told when he signed for Chelsea that he had two years to work before there would be any sort of pressure on him to deliver. Having overachieved (by some metrics) in winning the Club World Cup and qualifying for the Champions League last season, there should be no pressure on him at all going into the second of those two years.

Champions League qualification remains goal number one

“Barring any sudden change, that remains the plan for this summer, with Chelsea hoping they will have secured Champions League football by the time they sit down with Maresca,” Gill’s piece claims.

Qualifying for the Champions League is, as ever, priority number one, even above winning trophies or titles.

If you end up in the Europa League, not even an FA Cup will likely save you. Mauricio Pochettino didn’t make it and was let go after a year, although there are other reasons for that, including his reluctance to work in the “collaborative” ways his bosses wanted.

It’s all a little different with Maresca so far. He “retains full faith from within Chelsea, who are not panicking after back-to-back Premier League losses which involved red cards.”