Enzo Maresca has been in charge of Chelsea for just over a year and has already been compared to some of the best coaches in the world by Jamie Carragher
Jamie Carragher has praised 'top level' Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca, placing him in the same league as Pep Guardiola, Mikel Arteta and Arne Slot.
Carragher was analysing Chelsea's 1-0 victory over Tottenham on Saturday and looked at how the Blues successfully transitioned from defence to attack. After criticising Tottenham's "passive" and defensive approach, Carragher chose to spotlight Maresca's successful coaching of Chelsea, enabling them to control matches when they have the ball.
"I'll tell you a manager who can coach this, and that is Enzo Maresca. We've seen this a lot from Chelsea since he came in, it's nothing new," Carragher told Sky Sports.
"What you see in terms of rotations is: you've got a central midfield player in Reece James, now part of a back three in the middle there, splitting the centre backs.
"You've got your right back [Malo Gusto] - at times you see it with the left back, Cucurella. He's taking up almost right-sided attacking midfield positions. And you've got [Enzo] Fernandez, who spent a lot of time in the game in this [attacking] role, at times pulling wide, but he was also pulling [Joao] Palhinha onto the last line.
"Now what happens: the ball comes in to Joao Pedro, and what you've got now is, that's your centre forward [deep], and your right back is your highest player on the attacking line.
"So when you talk about rotations, this is what the managers at the really top level can do. Pep Guardiola, Arne Slot, Mikel Arteta, Enzo Maresca. They can coach the rotations and the movements."
Despite Chelsea's slender one-goal victory, the scoreline masked their dominance over Tottenham. The Blues generated an impressive expected goals (xG) figure of 3.69, while Spurs managed just 0.11.
Maresca's team enjoyed greater possession, registered more attempts, forced more saves and carved out more clear-cut opportunities than their rivals. It represented total control throughout the 90 minutes.
Speaking after the final whistle, Maresca said: "I'm happy with the one-nil and with the three points, especially because we kept the clean sheet that I think it's something that we need for the future. We knew that we are a team that, at the end, we are going to score goals, but we need to do better defensively.
"The performance was very good, on the ball and off the ball. For sure, the way we tried to press was very important, but I also think that our game against Liverpool off the ball was (a) top game - was very good.
"And you need that. You need that if you want to be close to the top - you need to be defensively solid. As I said, we know that almost always we score goals, but we need also to try to concede less goals."
The result leaves Chelsea in seventh position in the Premier League table, but draws them level on points with Tottenham in sixth place. Both teams have 17 points from their opening 10 games, with the gap to leaders Arsenal at eight points.