Maresca on Chelsea booking quarter final conference league spot with 3-1 aggregate win over Copenhagen

Maresca on Chelsea booking quarter final conference league spot with 3-1 aggregate win over Copenhagen  13/03/2025  Stamford Bridge, London, UK

Transcript

00:00David, yeah, grazie.

00:28I think first leg and second half were quite similar. The first leg we played in Denmark,

00:47first half we struggled, second half we were much better. The reason why is because we

00:51planned both games that way. The first game there we tried to analyse a little bit the

00:56first half and then to push a little bit in the second half in case we need it. Because

01:01we won there we prepared the game exactly the same way tonight. First half we analysed,

01:06we see what we need to improve. First half we changed the structure, we changed Joshua

01:11Chipong not because he was not doing well, he was doing very good. First time that he

01:16was doing a different kind of job, he was doing for me very, very good. But we changed

01:22him because we needed to change the structure. We were attacking with the five, we need to

01:26attack with six players and second half I think was much better.

01:29You said you needed to win this year to start. You know I won four in a row, three games

01:40you didn't concede a goal. Are you happy with the progress you guys have made?

01:44Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think in terms of results we won the last game in a row.

01:50We are three clean sheets as you said so it's very important. Now we have the last effort

01:54on Sunday. Hopefully we can finish good before the international break. And then as I said

02:00yesterday after the international break we can have back also Nico, Noni so we can go

02:05for the final sprint. But for sure the last four games they have been good in terms of

02:11results because we are quarter-final conference, we are fourth in the league so we are there.

02:18Now we just need to finish in the best way.

02:24You said in the build-up to this game that you took a bit of acclimatisation and maybe

02:32wasn't happy with his game time. How pleased are you to see him score and likely see him

02:38feature more in the Premier League between now and the end of the season?

02:40I'm very happy for Keenan. He's now much, much better compared to the start of the season

02:47probably because he's understanding his position, his role. He's working every day very good

02:52in the training session even if for the ones that they don't get minutes in the Premier

02:56League or in official games it's not easy to work every day with the same intention

03:02and he's working fantastic. And tonight he showed how important he can be for us and

03:08hopefully as you said he can be even more important from now on.

03:22Yes, for these guys.