Maresca getting “much better tune out of these players than Pochettino” claims pundit | OneFootball

We all know that ESPN pundit Craig Burley doesn’t give out praise easily, especially when it comes to Chelsea, so when we hear him being positive, we tend to sit up and take notice.

With 1/4 of the Premier League season played and an international break in full swing, Burley and his fellow pundits took the chance to look at Chelsea’s season so far, and inevitably the comparison came to last season, under a different manager.

Our last campaign started horribly, and it was only a late, great run to end the season which saved us from a memorably bad beginning. There’s no comparison between our record at this stage, and Burley is putting credit squarely at the feet of Enzo Maresca:

“It just shows you all these big, big coaches with the big names that Chelsea have gone for, the more unknown, less experienced guy, who’s gone in there, has got a much better tune out of these players than Pochettino did last year,” the former Chelsea player claimed.

Mauricio Pochettino and Enzo Maresca in a montage.

Good coaching from Maresca or just better luck

So now we have to consider the question – is the jump up this season really down to Maresca? Or just down to good fixtures and better injury luck? It’s hard to say. What we can say is that last year Pochettino’s problems came at the start of the campaign when he was missing a lot of key players.

When his team returned to full strength in the spring, results really picked up. Maresca has a better record for now – but in fact his points per game are only going to leave us on the same final tally as Pochettino.

Individually Maresca is really getting the best out of players like Nicolas Jackson and Moises Caicedo – but surely some of that is down to the base layer of work done by Pochettino a year ago?