Enzo Maresca explains what he’s working on with Chelsea’s Enzo Fernandez after Leicester victory

Add as preferred source on Google

Chelsea kickstarted the busy winter schedule with an important away win at Leicester City this weekend.

Enzo Maresca returned to his former club for the first time as the Chelsea manager, and he watched his side earn all three points in the Premier League meeting.

Nicolas Jackson scored the opener for the visiting side at the King Power Stadium. As a result, Jackson has more Premier League goals for Chelsea than Hernan Crespo.

Afterwards, Enzo Fernandez netted what turned out to be the match-winning goal with his close-range header.

Chelsea fans raved about Fernandez’s weekend display against Leicester, where the central midfielder shined on his return to the starting XI. It was great to see the Argentine star seize his chance of starting for the first time in the league since early October.

• READ MORE: Who is Enzo Fernandez? Height, position, transfer fee, salary, wife

Enzo Maresca shares Enzo Fernandez advice

Speaking in his post-match press conference, Maresca was extremely complimentary of Fernandez’s individual contribution in the Leicester victory.

On top of that, the Chelsea head coach shared that he’s been working with the central midfielder to encourage him to get further forward and break into the opposition’s penalty box.

“Enzo did really well today. He is doing very well since we started. The same as I said many times for Joao Felix, the problem is it depends on the game-plan; we use different kind of players,” Maresca said, as quoted by Football.London.

“Today I thought was the right game to use Enzo even if he was back from international duty [late]. I think he did very well. I’m trying to convince Enzo in the same way as I did last year with [Wilfred] Ndidi and Kiernan [Dewsbury-Hall] that attacking midfielders need to arrive in the box. The reason why he scored today was because he was inside the box and if he was outside of the box, he wouldn’t have scored the goal. We are happy in the way Enzo is doing.”

It’s great to see Fernandez show a desire to get into the penalty area during games, something that his manager wants from him.

Remarkably, he’s now got one goal and five assists in his last three Chelsea appearances across all competitions. It’ll become increasingly more difficult to leave him out of the starting XI if he continues to contribute so much.

Jason Cundy was sceptical of Fernandez starting against Leicester, but the player more than justified the selection with a man of the match display.

Enzo Fernandez drops clinic against Leicester

Fotmob data has provided the individual statistics from Fernandez’s eye-catching Chelsea performance this afternoon away to Leicester.

• Match rating – 9.0
• Minutes played – 90
• Goals – 1
• Assists – 1
• Total shots – 1
• Chances created – 3
• Touches – 79
• Accurate passes – 47/56 (84%)
• Interceptions – 1
• Duels won – 7
• Duels lost – 2

Frank Lampard suggests Fernandez has a tough job regaining his Chelsea spot because the midfield partnership of Moises Caicedo and Romeo Lavia has been so effective this season. However, it looks like Maresca can rotate his combination depending on the fixture.