Enzo Maresca insists Chelsea’s season is an improvement and ‘not a failure’ | OneFootball

Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca said his first season in charge has not been a failure and suggested critics have chosen not to acknowledge the progress made by his team.

Sunday’s dramatic 2-1 win against Fulham gave a timely boost in the race to qualify for the Champions League but supporters were made to sweat at Craven Cottage, their side trailing 1-0 for much of the west London derby before Tyrique George and Pedro Neto’s late goals snatched victory.

It briefly moved the Blues back into the top five though they have since relinquished that spot to Nottingham Forest, and with only six wins in their last 17 Premier League games they face a fight to secure the club’s stated objective, beginning with Saturday’s meeting with Everton at Stamford Bridge.

“Compared to the last two years, (the season) is not a failure,” said Maresca.

“How many times in the last two years have Chelsea been in the Champions League (places)? And this season we have been there almost all season. It’s an improvement or not? It’s already an improvement.”

Chelsea finished 12th and sixth in their previous two campaigns, their first full seasons under the ownership of Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital and during which there was significant turnover both of players and managers.

This season, which has seen less overhaul of the squad, was supposed to have been the year in which the more than £1billion investment in recruitment paid off in terms of results, but with five games of the campaign to go the team is in the same position in the table in which it finished last May.

Having been in second place and two points behind leaders Liverpool in December prior to their form collapsing, Maresca believes progress has been made but accused others of failing to recognise it.

“Compared to the last two years it’s quite clear there is an improvement,” he said.

“If you want to see it, you see it. If you don’t want to see it, you don’t see it. Depends in which way (you look). I see it.

“We have the obligation to bring this club to where it belongs. The results have been there. Me as a manager, the club, we all have ambition. I think we are in the right direction and hopefully we can be there very soon.”

Relations with the club’s supporters have been tense for much of Chelsea’s poor run, with Maresca choosing not to celebrate with the away fans on Sunday following Neto’s late winner.

“I can understand (the frustration),” he said.

“We are trying to keep them happy. I think the fans are the same as (in December) when they were singing that Chelsea is back and showing that they were happy.

“Now because we are not winning the same number of games as at the beginning, they are showing they’re not happy. In the way we accepted it when they were singing that Chelsea is back, we need to accept it now that they are not happy.”