Ex-Chelsea star says Enzo Maresca doesn't deserve to be manager

Former Chelsea player Scott Minto has said that Enzo Maresca 'doesn't deserve' to be the club's manager.

• "You get rid of Pochettino, and you bring someone in on a five-year contract, who is already many peoples' favourite to be sacked first this season. What kind of culture is that creating?"
• "Top six is a must, I think. If they don't even equal what they managed under Poch, which was considered not good enough, albeit in Enzo Maresca's first season in charge, then it just makes the decision to get rid of Poch even more of a ridiculous one."
• "Look, we're talking about incredibly intelligent, successful businessmen. You know, these are billionaires, so they're not idiots. But they've got a philosophy which they think is the best way to go, and it clearly works with baseball; collect as many young players as possible, and then almost play cards with them."
• "Enzo Maresca is a very good coach, but he doesn't deserve to be a Chelsea manager right now, because he's only been managing for a year. Pochettino was the one who came in and turned everything around last year... and what happens? You get rid of him, and you bring someone in on a five-year contract, who is already many peoples' favourite to be sacked first this season. What kind of culture is that creating?"
• "I don't judge teams on the first game of the season at the best of times; I certainly don't judge a Chelsea side with a new manager, up against the best team in the world, losing 2-0... there's no disgrace in that. I'll now judge them on their next few games, you know, Servette, Wolves, Servette, Crystal Palace..."
  

With Chelsea, what's a good season? Well, a very good season is fourth. What's a decent season? I think it's sixth. We're talking purely in the Premier League here, by the way; really, they should win the Conference League, although we said the same about Aston Villa last year. 

Top six is a must, I think. If they don't even equal what they managed under Poch, which was considered not good enough, albeit in Enzo Maresca's first season in charge, then it just makes the decision to get rid of Poch even more of a ridiculous one.  

I think that if they won a cup, be that in Europe or domestically, and they finished in the top six, that's what you'd have to consider a good season for Chelsea.

Nothing's changed in terms of the philosophy. Look, we're talking about incredibly intelligent, successful businessmen. You know, these are billionaires, so they're not idiots. But they've got a philosophy which they think is the best way to go, and it clearly works with baseball; collect as many young players as possible, and then almost play cards with them, and start shuffling them around, and trade them. But football doesn't work like that.

You know, we've just seen with Raheem Sterling, that if he's not part of the squad, then he's not part of the future. I'm sorry, please don't tell me he's part of the future when he's not even a part of the squad, despite playing pretty well in pre-season. I think that's come from above. So now, you've got just over a week to try and get rid of someone who's on over 300 grand a week. You're sending out a signal to all the other clubs who are just going to say "we'll only pay £10m for him, and you're going to have to supplement his wages."

It just seems ridiculous. I know they've got a lot of money, but surely even billionaires don't want to be losing money. 

And just from a football point of view, being a player, you can't have too many players. You can't have proper training sessions. You can't have a kind of bomb squad of good lads, like Trevor Chalobah and Conor Gallagher, training to one side. Players get annoyed on their behalf. You've got 30 to 40 players... how does a manager get a proper training session in for his starting eleven? It can't be done. 

At what point are the owners going to realise that this philosophy now has to stop?

And also in terms of buying young players for the future... well, they've just bought in Pedro Neto and Joao Felix for a lot of money. I'd be very surprised if they're going to be sold on in the future, and that's fine because they've been signed for the first-team and Chelsea's first-team should always be among the best in the world. But the stockpiling of the youngsters, who aren't going to get anywhere near the first-team, has just got to stop. You're paying a lot of money for them, and how are they going to show that their value is improving, because they're not going to be playing for the club... they're going to have to go out on loan. For me, it's just a big, big gamble, and they seem absolutely determined to go the way they want to go, and that their philosophy is right. 

I don't get it. I really don't. I want to; this is Chelsea, and I love the football club. I want to defend it, but at some point they've got to turn around and stop going down the same route. The ultimate example is the manager. Enzo Maresca is a very good coach, but he doesn't deserve to be a Chelsea manager right now, because he's only been managing for a year. [Mauricio] Pochettino was the one who came in and turned everything around last year, and it really looked like things were heading in the right direction. And what happens? You get rid of him, and you bring someone in on a five-year contract, who is already many peoples' favourite to be sacked first this season. What kind of culture is that creating?

Enzo Maresca is the kind of manager who is wedded to his formation; that 4-3-3, making use of his full-backs, his wingers are wingers and they stay wide, one of the number eights becomes a second striker and helps out with the high press... I was just thinking that if he stuck to that against Manchester City, Chelsea would get battered. I really like the fact that he changed things up and went with a 4-2-3-1. You know, there's a lot of young managers now who are stubborn, almost, in what they do, and if their Plan A doesn't work, then their Plan B is to make Plan A better. 

I actually thought Chelsea did pretty well; the game changed when Pep [Guardiola] switched his wingers. Being a left-back, I'm always interested to see how full-backs deal with good wingers. Jeremy Doku is a player I really like, and yet every time he tried to go past Marc Cucurella, he wasn't having any joy. The moment he switched over to the other side, all of a sudden, Savinho was asking different questions of Cucurella, and Doku set up the first goal. That was the big turning point, and from the moment City scored, Chelsea just couldn't create enough chances to score. There's no way they were outplayed in the midfield, or anything like that. The second goal was a mistake by Robert Sanchez, but ultimately I just think that even if they were still playing now, Chelsea wouldn't have scored a goal. 

I don't judge teams on the first game of the season at the best of times; I certainly don't judge a Chelsea side with a new manager, up against the best team in the world, losing 2-0... there's no disgrace in that. I'll now judge them on their next few games, you know, Servette, Wolves, Servette, Crystal Palace...

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