Enzo Maresca finally responds to claims about training incident and punishments | OneFootball

Chelsea have had a very long international break of close to 3 weeks, and there wasn’t much to talk about, meaning small stories got more traction than they otherwise might have.

A week ago it was reported that Enzo Maresca had cancelled a day off for his players after they lost to an U21 group in training. He was asked about that today, and played it down:

“It’s nothing. Since I joined the club, I always decide high standards. Not many players were here and we had a day off after, sometimes it’s normal. I didn’t allow this so we decided to train.”

It’s not quite clear if he’s saying he was planning to train anyway, or if he’s confirming he did cancel the day off as the result of low effort in that game.

We’ve seen this disciplinary streak from Maresca before, notably when he booted Noni Madueke from a couple of matchday squads for poor training performance. We’re all for it – but as he says, a mountain shouldn’t be made out of a molehill. The players we are talking about are the non-internationals, generally pretty peripheral.

All focus on final 9 games

Romeo Lavia in training at Cobham.

Maresca then insisted that his players are focused on finishing the season well with one clear goal in mind – making the top 5 and getting into the Champions League:

“Since day one, they are giving everything. The attitude has always been top, every day, and even in the last week because they know how important it is from now on. Every game becomes important. We have nine games to go and hopefully we can finish well.”

Let’s hope that this little bit of international break discipline has them fired up to finish strong. They have all the players they need and have had a nice rest.