Enzo Maresca has already achieved one thing at Chelsea which the former manager couldn’t – winning a trophy.
The Italian proudly lifted the Conference League trophy a month ago after demolishing Real Betis in the final, and is now pushing to add the Club World Cup to his cabinet.
Mauricio Pochettino fell at the final hurdle in the EFL Cup, and utilised a number of excuses as to why he was not able to get over the line, as well as not bringing the club back to the Champions League.
The Argentine frequently blamed injuries, and he had a point. The likes of Romeo Lavia and Reece James were missing for the majority of the campaign.
Enzo Maresca’s injury update shows how far Chelsea have come since Mauricio Pochettino
However, some were of the belief that many of these issues could have been avoided throughout Pochettino’s campaign in charge. Lavia for example was thrown on to the pitch in a high-intensity game against Crystal Palace, and that was his only appearance of the season.
Fast forward to now though, and despite a gruelling season under their belts, Maresca confirmed to the Chelsea website that there were no fitness concerns to report within his squad, and they were taking the appropriate measures to allow players to recover.
He said: “No injuries at the moment, but because it’s a tournament and we have a game every three days, we need to rotate players.
“I’m not saying we’re going to rotate ten or eleven players each game, but we will need to rotate three, four or five players each game for sure. This is because we cannot play every three days with the same players.
“The ones we tried to rotate a little bit in the first game are the ones we have tried to rotate since day one: Romeo (Lavia) and Reece (James). We also gave some minutes off to Moi, who has played the whole season, by bringing on Dario Essugo. We will try to continue on that.”
Chelsea’s astonishing injury record under Pochettino
According to BBC Sport, Chelsea had suffered a total of 43 injuries throughout the 2023/24 campaign, only being topped by Manchester United.
This was despite not having European football to deal with, and most of the time playing just one game a week.
Results on the pitch have clearly been better since Maresca came in, however it is the ability to have their best players available for the most amount of games possible.
The Italian will be hoping that good run carries on throughout the rest of the Club World Cup, as well as the upcoming Premier League campaign.
