It’s official: Chelsea is shining again with Enzo Maresca. In his first season on the bench of the Blues things couldn’t go better for the London club and the Italian coach, winning against Tottenham 4-3 and away from home. A result that allowed the Chelsea manager to place himself in second place alone with 31 points, -4 behind leaders Liverpool. On the sidelines of the match Maresca spoke to the microphones of Sky Sports UK: “It’s for the fans. I said this week that we were working to make them happy and today they can be happy.”
On mid-game changes: “First of all we had a problem with Romeo Lavia, then Malo Gusto came in and we moved Moi (Caicedo, ed.) by changing the attacking midfielder. The changes were good.”
About Cole Palmerscorer of a resounding double against Spurs and a penalty complete with an ice-cold spoon: “I’ve known Cole for a long time and I always trust him, in every aspect. He’s a fantastic person. He’s learning to play when he’s marked man-to-man , Bissouma was on top of him the whole game, learning, improving and scoring goals.”
On the title race: “Arsenal, City and Liverpool probably don’t make mistakes – like Cucurella’s. To be serious, we are not ready, we are far from these teams, but we focus on the day by day and try to improve the team.”
The complete program
Saturday 7 December
Everton – Liverpool postponed to a later date
Aston Villa 1-0 Southampton
Brentford 4-2 Newcastle
Crystal Palace – Manchester City 2-2
Manchester United – Nottingham Forest 2-3
Sunday 8 December
Fulham – Arsenal 1-1
Ipswich 1-2 Bournemouth
Leicester – Brighton 2-2
Tottenham – Chelsea 3-4
Monday 9 December
West Ham – Wolverhampton
The ranking
Liverpool 35
Chelsea 31
Arsenal 29
Manchester City 27
Nottingham Forest 25
Aston Villa 25
Brighton 24
Bournemouth 24
Brentford 23
Fulham 22
Tottenham 20
Newcastle 20
Manchester United 19
West Ham 15
Everton 14
Leicester 14
Crystal Palace 13
Wolverhampton 9
Ipswich 9
Southampton 5