“I expected more” – Enzo Maresca calls out Reece James’ leadership in amazingly honest press conference | OneFootball

In a rather surprising press conference quote, Enzo Maresca has questioned Reece James’ leadership as captain of Chelsea.

“I spoke with him and I expected from him more in terms of leadership, inside the changing room and for different kinds of things,” Maresca admitted in his press conference today.

“He’s on the way, he’s doing well, he’s progressing but from Reece I expected more also in terms of leadership. Most of the time when they are captain, they think that because they are captain they have more, ‘because I am the captain, I expect that you give me more’,” the former Leicester manager said, showing some pretty amazing frankness.

“For me, because you are the captain you have to give more. You have to give more than the rest. And sometimes it’s, ‘okay, I am the captain I can give less’, no.  He’s one of the captains and I expected from him, and his teammates expected from him, to give always more in terms of leadership in general.”

Reece James playing table tennis in some downtime during preseason.

(Photo by Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC)

Maresca flexes his muscles by calling out captain

We don’t mind Maresca calling out his captain in this way, not at all.

James has never seemed the best candidate as a captain anyway in many ways. Of course he’s Chelsea through and through, and is a superb player when he’s fit. But he’s quite a shy guy – “reserved”, as Maresca put it. He’s not a natural speech maker and leader, and of course his injury problems make things even worse.

As Maresca says, this is all something can James can improve on, and we’re happy to see that the new coach is feeling empowered enough to call out his captain. Let’s hope James takes it in the spirit it’s intended and