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Jamie Carragher has lauded "top level" Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca, positioning him alongside the likes of Pep Guardiola, Mikel Arteta, and Arne Slot.
Carragher was examining Chelsea's 1-0 triumph over Tottenham on Saturday and studied how the Blues effectively shifted from defence to attack. Following his criticism of Tottenham's "passive" and defensive tactics, Carragher opted to highlight Maresca's accomplished management of Chelsea, allowing them to dominate matches whilst in possession.
"I'll tell you a manager who can coach this, and that is Enzo Maresca. We've seen this a lot from Chelsea since he came in, it's nothing new," Carragher told Sky Sports.
"What you see in terms of rotations is: you've got a central midfield player in Reece James, now part of a back three in the middle there, splitting the center-backs.
"You've got your right back [Malo Gusto] - at times you see it with the left back, Cucurella. He's taking up almost right-sided attacking midfield positions. And you've got [Enzo] Fernandez, who spent a lot of time in the game in this [attacking] role, at times pulling wide, but he was also pulling [Joao] Palhinha onto the last line.
"Now what happens: the ball comes in to Joao Pedro, and what you've got now is, that's your center-forward [deep], and your right back is your highest player on the attacking line.
"So when you talk about rotations, this is what the managers at the really top level can do. Pep Guardiola, Arne Slot, Mikel Arteta, Enzo Maresca. They can coach the rotations and the movements."
Despite Chelsea's narrow one-goal triumph, the final score concealed the team's overwhelming superiority against Tottenham. The Blues accumulated a remarkable expected goals (xG) tally of 3.69, while Spurs mustered merely 0.11.
Maresca's side controlled possession, recorded more shots, compelled additional saves and created superior clear-cut chances compared to their opponents.
It demonstrated complete authority across the entire 90 minutes.
Following the final whistle, Maresca commented: "I'm happy with the one-nil and with the three points, especially because we kept the clean sheet that I think it's something that we need for the future.
"We knew that we are a team that, at the end, we are going to score goals, but we need to do better defensively.
"The performance was very good, on the ball and off the ball. For sure, the way we tried to press was very important, but I also think that our game against Liverpool off the ball was (a) top game - was very good.
"And you need that. You need that if you want to be close to the top - you need to be defensively solid. As I said, we know that almost always we score goals, but we need also to try to concede less goals."
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