Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca has spoken to the media earlier than Sunday’s Premier League recreation at (kick-off 13:30 GMT).
Listed below are the important thing traces from his information convention:
Maresca stated the hole between Chelsea and Arsenal is “fairly large”, including: “The rationale why is as a result of they’re working with the identical supervisor for 5 years so the distinction is kind of vital. Additionally they have the identical gamers which have already performed some vital video games. However our responsibility is to shut that hole between us and them. On this second, the desk says the distinction is simply six factors so we’re fairly shut. Now we have 9 video games nonetheless to go.”
Maresca expects Arsenal to play the sport with a excessive press and to be “aggressive”, which can enable the Blues “extra space to assault in behind”.
Chelsea are “used to taking part in in finals and combating for titles”, and Maresca stated reaching the 2 targets of qualifying for the Champions League and profitable the Convention League “are vital for us”.
On whether or not he’ll make a goalkeeper change: “Sure, it is going to be Robert taking part in towards Arsenal. Since we began, the concept was to not change the keeper, however we now have needed to be versatile with our gameplan since arriving. I feel Robert wants some days off, or at the least a relaxation mentally. Now he’s again, we hope to not change till the tip – however I additionally am proud of each keepers.”
On Cole Palmer: “Cole in the mean time struggles to attain objectives. Of the three guys who rating objectives for us, two should not out there [Nicolas Jackson and Noni Madueke] and one is on the market, a bit unfortunate and lacking objectives – however there are different gamers which might be doing nicely.”
The Italian stated it’s “unusual” each London golf equipment discover themselves with out a recognised striker due to accidents, including: “They’re looking for options and we’re looking for options. Pedro [Neto] is doing very nicely in that place. We are going to see if we use Pedro or attempt one thing else on Sunday. All of the golf equipment have moments once they have accidents so they should adapt.”