Enzo Maresca Chelsea sack verdict given as honest Roman Abramovich point made

Chelsea legend Joe Cole believes the club are heading in the right direction under head coach Enzo Maresca and does not believe the Italian's job is under any immediate pressure at Stamford Bridge.

Before back-to-back victories against Benfica and Liverpool, there were a small section of supporters - particularly online - calling for Maresca to be sacked. The Blues have endured a mixed start to the campaign, with Saturday evening's dramatic late win against the Reds lifting them up to seventh in the Premier League table.

In the league, Maresca's men have won three of their seven matches, while drawing two and losing a couple in the process. In the Champions League, they started off with an away defeat to Bayern Munich - that can be forgiven - but responded with a crucial three points at home to Benfica last week, while Chelsea have progressed into the fourth round of the Carabao Cup.

When tensions were a tad high in the fan base, football.london brought you the news that Chelsea would not panic and sack Maresca - even if they were to be beaten against Benfica and Liverpool, which of course did not happen regardless. The reality is: Chelsea have only been beaten once - when they have had 11 men on the pitch - since April 17, and that was the defeat to German champions Bayern.

Cole was asked about a potential threat to Maresca's job, but the Chelsea icon has rubbished such talk. He believes Chelsea's activity in the transfer market since being bought by Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital points towards there being no immediate pressure on the head coach.

"Do I think his job could be under threat? No, because I think there's enough goodwill in the bank winning two trophies last season," Cole said to Paddy Power. "I think we've got to get out of the habit of judging Chelsea under the last administration and the new ownership group.

"This ownership group - it's a rebuild. It's a restructuring and they're going to be looking at Enzo Maresca as somebody who's nurtured these young players, who's put value onto these young players, who's won trophies, who's got the club back into the Champions League.

"If they were expecting immediate results, they would be signing senior players to try and win things. I know that's not what Chelsea fans want to hear. They long for the days of 'we know what the North Star is, we're buying the best players in the world, and we're trying to win the biggest trophies in the world. And when it goes wrong, we're going to change managers until we find one that does.'

"But that's not there, this is the new thing. So, because of that, I don't think he is under pressure."

Cole continued: "Having said that, if Chelsea continue to be mid-table once the league settles down around Christmas, obviously that's not par for the course for where Chelsea are. Par for the course for Chelsea is a better Champions League place, if that makes sense? A more comfortable run into the Champions League places, but at the moment, the performances are not where we think they can be."

Cole was also asked about Chelsea's injury situation at the moment. A total of seven players missed Saturday's win at Liverpool due to injury and Cole is adamant their participation in the Club World Cup over the summer is now having a detrimental impact on the season.

He said: "I think the situation with Chelsea's ill discipline was just bad decision making at times in games which can happen. Injuries, though, 100%.

"I think if you look at PSG, I watched their game the other night and they had five or six starters out against Barcelona. They still won, but Manchester City have had players injured, Chelsea have. So, absolutely, 100%.

"Some fans might listen to this, players playing too much, getting injured, and go, 'Yeah, but you get paid a lot of money.' And yes from that framework, players do get paid a lot of money to play, but what I'm saying is, you go to watch these Champions League, Premier League games because you want to see something you can't see on the parks at the weekend.

"You want to see the best of the best playing. When you play players like this - keep flogging them - their levels come down because that is normal. So, the fans are not getting the best product because it's saturated.

"Then you lose players - Rodri springs to mind - done his knee, missed him for a year. Will Rodri be the same Rodri ever again? That's a Ballon d'Or winner. You're not getting the best players, you're just flogging it, and it's done for financial reasons, nothing else.

"I think football should be treated as sacred. It should be something where it's not just flog the horse to make money. It's ride the horse at the right time. Bring it together - brilliant games, beautiful games, the best should be playing the best.

"The PSG game - five players missing, for instance, against Barcelona. If that's the final and 50% of the best team in the world are missing because of injuries, it's a direct correlation between overplay and injury. It's too simple to say, 'they're footballers, they're paid to play.'

"Footballers will play, but we want the best. You want to see the best version of [Ousmane] Dembele, the best [Lamine] Yamal. You don't want to see players playing at 50, 60, 70%. You want to see them at their best because we love football."