“The club never told me…” – Maresca lowers Chelsea expectations again with top 4 comments | OneFootball

Enzo Maresca annoyed Chelsea fans in the wake of the club’s exit from the Champions League by saying that it could be a “positive” because it would allow them more time to prepare for Premier League games.

That’s not the kind of mentality fans want to see, even if there is some logic to it. They want a team that’s competing at the top, hungry to win every trophy and raging at every defeat. The gradual lowering of standards and expectations continues to undermine the team’s success, and today in his press conference Maresca will have annoyed fans again by moving the goalposts on his expectations for the season.

He pointed out that Chelsea had not been in the top four for the last few year, while “we spent almost the entire year in the top four [this year].

This led to questions about the form of Nottingham Forest and whether that could squeeze Chelsea out of the Champions League places if Man City get into gear. Maresca responded to this by denying that his objective was to do that:

“I didn’t say our target was top four. The club never told me the target was top four. When I signed here, the target was in two years playing in the Champions League, not in one year. This is why I have said many times we are above my expectation,” the former Leicester coach explained.

“Nottingham Forest are doing fantastic, very good, so congratulations to them. We will see how we finish.”

Maresca refuses to set high standards – so team continue to disappoint

Enzo Maresca speaks at a Cobham press conference. (Photo by Chris Lee/Chelsea FC)

Quite understandably, he was then pressed on his answer – would finishing outside the top four mean the season was a failure, given we were almost top at Christmas?

“We will see how we finish. The good thing about me is I’m not saying something different to you today that I said one month ago. Since day one, I’ve always said the same: I’m not looking at May or June, I’m looking game by game how we can improve – and only that. We will see at the end of the season.”