Maresca looking for Chelsea cup reaction against Wolves after weekend setback

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Maresca looking for Chelsea cup reaction against Wolves after weekend setback  28/10/2025  Cobham Training Centre, Surrey, UK

Transcript

00:00Morning. Morning, morning, morning.

00:16It's just on that side.

00:17That's it? Yes.

00:25Okay, good morning and thank you for joining us.

00:28We will take the usual format today.

00:32Please raise your hands for any questions

00:35and we will begin with Gary Cottrell and Sky Sports News.

00:38There we go, Gary.

00:39Good morning.

00:41Morning.

00:41Thank you, Roger, for your time.

00:43Enzo, can I just confirm what you said on Friday

00:46that Liam is available for the game?

00:49Yes, he took part of a complete lead session yesterday

00:55and is available for tomorrow.

00:57Obviously, he hasn't played any football,

01:01so not probably for the full 90 minutes?

01:04No, 90 minutes, no.

01:05It's, I think, two months now that he's out,

01:09so he needs gradually, you know, back to 100%.

01:14Obviously, you have the capacity with your squad,

01:18you've shown it already this season,

01:19to make wholesale changes to starting line-ups and still win games.

01:23Is that your thinking for this one?

01:26The reason why it's not,

01:29the reason why it's because we need to rotate,

01:31we need to protect players,

01:34because if we go with the same 11,

01:38we're going to struggle during the season,

01:42so we need to rotate and probably we're going to make some changes.

01:46I don't know how many, but we're going to make some changes.

01:48So is any guy, for example,

01:50beating Forest, making 10 changes,

01:52and then beating Ajax really well?

01:54I don't know yet, for sure we're going to make some changes.

02:00I don't know now if 9-10, like we did between Forest and Ajax,

02:06but for sure we're going to make changes again,

02:08because we need to do that.

02:10Are there a chance maybe to arrest Enzo, Moises and Niawe,

02:14that you said were carrying Niggles?

02:16Yeah, probably they are players that need to be protected for many reasons,

02:26so probably tomorrow we'll see.

02:28But yeah, Enzo, Moises, Joao,

02:31they are all players that, for different reasons,

02:35we need to protect them.

02:37You spoke about consistency after the game, the weekend.

02:42Is that something you've sat your players down and spoken to them about,

02:45or are they perfectly aware of your thoughts on that?

02:48No, we mentioned it, because you need that.

02:53You need consistency if you want to have a good season.

02:57After four wins in a row, unfortunately we draw points against Sunderland,

03:04but now we move on and focus on tomorrow's game.

03:08And not only consistency if you can manage a win tomorrow night,

03:12you're back on the start of hopefully a winning run,

03:16but also going deeper into the competition, three games away from a final.

03:22The deeper you get into a cup competition, do you get more hungry to go all the way?

03:27Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

03:28As you said, it's three games from the final, so we need to have the desire to play for that.

03:35As we said many times, we need to go game by game.

03:38Now the first one is Wolves tomorrow, we need to be focused on them,

03:42and then hopefully winning the game, we can think about the next one.

03:48There's been some criticism of your comments on Friday about not being a fan of the long throw.

03:56Usual places, social media, voting shows, fans saying you should use every weapon at your disposal.

04:05Now that Liam's back in the reckoning, have you actually checked out his DNA to see if he's also a king of throw-ins?

04:11No, I've said many times that as a human being you can say something,

04:18but then you have million persons that they can interpret it in different ways.

04:24And what I can control is what I say.

04:27What I cannot control is the mind of people, how they can interpret it.

04:32I said that in this moment we are not looking for long throw-ins,

04:37but because I'm a manager that I love to evolve, probably one day I will use that.

04:42These are my words.

04:43Now if people interpret it in the wrong way, I cannot control.

04:48I'm not here to control what people think.

04:51So I didn't ask Liam about long throw-ins, but again, not tomorrow.

04:58Probably one day we're going to ask Liam.

05:00Because he was probably growing up in the back garden, you know, doing them.

05:04Yeah, I said also that we can swap Liam with his dad.

05:08But there has been criticism, but actually set-piece goals, you're doing really well this season.

05:13I think second only in the Premier League, set-piece goals scored to Arsenal.

05:18They've scored 11 and they're getting all this talk about set-pieces and you've scored nine.

05:23Yeah, but we also concede, Arsenal also concede from set-pieces.

05:30Set-pieces for me is part of the game.

05:32You are going to score goals from set-pieces and you are going to concede goals from set-pieces.

05:37It's good news that after Arsenal, we are the team with more goals and we're going to try to continue to score goals,

05:46but not just in set-pieces, in all the way.

05:51In this moment, we are in the Premier League, the team with more goals, 17.

05:56So that means that we score goals, set-pieces or open play.

06:00Probably we need to pay a little bit more attention to the goals that we are in this moment conceding.

06:06Thanks, Gary. Nizar?

06:07Since Antonio Conte, Chelsea have been a cup team, do you feel like that?

06:13That maybe success is easier for this club in the Cups at the moment than it is in the Premier League to win the title?

06:19I don't know. I try to focus game by game, no matter which competition it is, and try to go as far as we can.

06:32Do you think this competition is very important though, or the domestic Cups are very important for Chelsea this season,

06:37to try and get a trophy maybe because of the league you are lacking that consistency that you spoke about?

06:42I think for Chelsea, all the competitions are important.

06:45You know, Chelsea has to try to win games and to try to win competitions.

06:52So for me personally, all the competitions are important.

06:55You were talking about João Pedro and his fitness.

06:58He's kind of started unbelievably well, didn't he?

07:01Three goals in three games at the Club World Cup, then two goals and three assists in four games in the Premier League.

07:07But since then he's not scored in seven, so I was wondering, is it fitness related with him?

07:12Is he struggling because of fitness?

07:14For sure the physical part is important.

07:16When you are not 100%, it's difficult to compete, especially in this league.

07:24But I think João is not a problem at all.

07:28He's going to score goals with us, he's going to give us assists,

07:32knowing that João Pedro is not a nine that is going to score 20 goals each year.

07:39Otherwise we liar, you know.

07:42He's not João, he's a fantastic player, he's going to score goals for us, he's going to give us assists.

07:48But it's a different kind of nine, like, I don't know, this kind of nine that they score 20-25 goals each year.

07:57So Lewandowski, Mbappé or Allan, this kind, it's a different kind of profile.

08:02Do you have any players like that where you think you need to spread the goals around?

08:06I think in the past you said you need to spread the goals for all the players really, don't you?

08:10Because of the profiles you have. Is that what you need to do to be successful?

08:14Absolutely, yes. We said many times that the five players at the front,

08:18we need six, seven, eight, nine, ten goals each in the way we have done last season.

08:25Thanks, Nizar.

08:26Keris?

08:27It feels like a good time to talk about Pedro Neto with two games coming up against Wolves.

08:32I just wanted to ask, he's been with you for a little while now,

08:35what is he like as a character around the squad and around the dressing room?

08:39It's top, it's very humble, working hard, it's a very important player for us and we are very happy with Pedro.

08:50It's exactly the same than other players, it needs to be always 100%,

08:55because in the moment that you drop a little bit mentally or physically in this league, it's complicated.

09:01I just wanted to ask you also about centre-backs, different areas of the pitch.

09:06You've tried a lot of different combinations at centre-back this season, partly with injuries, with a red card suspension.

09:12I wonder, do you feel that you have a first-choice centre-back pairing at the moment and do you think you need one?

09:19The reason why we are trying to spread minutes, to rotate, is because first of all we also need to manage players,

09:30like for instance Wes Fofana that is back from injury, Benoit, unfortunately that is injury again, but we try to manage him.

09:38And then we are tossing that this season, we have the problem, Josh Treff, we are trying to rotate a little bit for many reasons,

09:50but for sure in the moment that you have two centre defenders, for instance last season we played I think five, six months with Wes and Levi,

09:59the first five, six moves, it's good because they can, you know, the combination and they can grow together,

10:07but in this moment we are trying to rotate and for sure slowly we are getting better.

10:13Would you rather be able to have that consistency or do you think you are going to stick to the approach of changing it up?

10:22Consistency is always better in any aspect, for players, for team, for anyone.

10:28Okay, thanks Geris, if there are no more questions we will end that section there, so cameras off please.

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