Enzo Maresca confirmed that he has not had any contact with club officials since making a cryptic remark that prompted questions about his relationship with those above him at Chelsea. The manager declined to expand on the comment and made clear the supporters were not the group he had in mind, telling reporters: “I\u2019m not annoyed with all of you.”<\/p>\n
Many observers inferred the remarks were aimed at the club hierarchy, with speculation focusing on co-sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart and co-owner Behdad Eghbali. Multiple reports cited in recent coverage have suggested Maresca has grown tired of having his methods questioned by influential figures inside the organisation.<\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s Carabao Cup quarterfinal, a 3\u20131 win over League One side Cardiff City, did little to change the manager\u2019s demeanour. Following the victory, when asked if he was happy he replied simply: “No.” He was also asked whether anyone from the ownership group or the sporting directors had spoken to him since his earlier comments. “No,” he revealed.<\/p>\n
He outlined his focus after the Everton defeat, saying: “As I said yesterday, the day after Everton, I started to prepare for Cardiff, focus on Cardiff. Now I just said, on the bus I will watch Newcastle games [to prepare for Saturday\u2019s fixture] and I didn\u2019t speak with one of them.” The manager\u2019s assertion of silence from the club\u2019s upper-management is notable given the regular involvement of those figures at matches and in the dressing room before, after and sometimes during fixtures.<\/p>\n
One positive moment for Maresca on the night was the reception from travelling supporters when his name was sung late on. He acknowledged the gesture, calling it: “It was a great moment.<\/p>\n
“I appreciate it and I am always thankful. I said many times the support has always been there, knowing that any supporters in the world are not happy when you don\u2019t win. In some moments when we haven\u2019t won games they have not been happy, but it is normal. Overall the fans have always been there.<\/p>\n
“You cannot imagine how happy I am for the players because it is another semifinal for them, the fans, for everyone.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maresca says he has not been contacted by club hierarchy since his recent cryptic message. Tonight..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5166,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190],"tags":[1066,1087,1215],"class_list":["post-5167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","tag-carabao-cup","tag-coaching-change","tag-controversy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}