Enzo Maresca has discussed this weekend’s Premier League match against Newcastle United. Chelsea faces the Magpies twice in a matter of days, first in the league at Stamford Bridge and then in a Carabao Cup tie at St. James’ Park on Wednesday night. Following Chelsea’s 4-1 victory over Panathinaikos in Greece on Thursday, Maresca addressed several questions, primarily focusing on his captain, Reece James.
**Reece James’s Availability and Leadership**
Enzo Maresca said “They were very happy about the minutes they got. The performance? They finished very well. No injury, which is the most important thing. In the same time, they were not happy because we lost that game. But, as I said, the reason why they are not in the squad here, Romeo, Wes and even Reece, is because probably, in this moment, they cannot play two games a week. No, they are all okay. I don’t know. For sure now. Hopefully building the physical condition so, in future, hopefully he can play more games a week. But now it’s important that he doesn’t get injured again and he can get games and minutes.”
**On Reece James’s Mental Approach and Leadership Development**
Enzo Maresca said “To be honest, I’ve spoken with Reece many, many times. He’s one that I speak with more since we started, before the injury and now again. Sometimes it’s not only Reece. We talk about it because he’s our player, he’s always here. But every club they have some players that always get injury, injury, injury. We need to find the right solution for him and to try to help him. Probably in this moment, the solution could be to use him once a week. We’d like to use him every day because he’s a fantastic player but we need to adapt. We hope so. Then in football you never know. You can get injured walking, you never know. But we are all agreed, that probably for him, the solution now is to play one game a week. First of all, he agrees. He knows himself and he agrees that probably in this moment the solution is to play once a week. For sure, as I said before, hopefully in the future he can play more games.”
**Expectations as Club Captain**
Enzo Maresca said “Yes, I spoke with him and I expected from him more in terms of leadership, inside the changing room and for different kind of things. So he’s on the way, he’s doing well, he’s progressing but from Reece I expected more also in terms of leadership. Most of the time when they are captain, they think that because they are captain they have more: ‘because I am the captain, I expect that you give me more.’ For me, because you are the captain you have to give more. You have to give more than the rest. And sometimes: ‘okay, I am the captain I can give less’, no. He’s one of the captains and I expected from him, and his teammates expected from him, to give always more in terms of leadership in general. Good, that’s why I said he’s on the way. He understands that we expected more from him. He’s one of our guys from the academy but this is one of the reasons why he has to show more in terms of personality.”
**Thoughts on Team Leadership Dynamics**
Enzo Maresca said “He’s a reserved guy, as you said, but not only him. But when you don’t have a proper leader, you need to build that. I think we don’t have a proper leader. We don’t have guys, you can see them… probably Tosin is one of the guys that is. So the rest we need to build them. So Reece is there, he’s on the way but he’s not there. So he needs to make an effort in that one. The one that is doing fantastic in this kind of thing is Levi. Levi probably at the beginning of the season was not a leader but now you can see that he is one of the guys that is always speaking. We need to build that. We need as much as we have, then it’s perfect. Marc Cucurella is one of the guys, so we need more and more. Yes, but this something that also goes with the age. Probably in one or two years, three years some of them will be better in that. But, as I said, if they are not there we need to help them to understand, not only the football side, also leadership side that they need to grow.”
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