Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca admitted Chelsea exceeded his expectations after staging a superb comeback to beat Tottenham Hotspur 4-3 this afternoon.
The west London side were 2-0 down inside 11 minutes after two slips from Marc Cucurella, who appeared to be wearing the wrong type of boot, but fought back to stay four points behind Premier League leaders Liverpool.
Cole Palmer scored two penalties with Jadon Sancho and Enzo Fernandez also on target as Chelsea secured their fourth straight win in all competitions.
Cole Palmer weaves his way through the Tottenham defense and Enzo Fernandez is there to finish it off with a brilliant strike 💫 pic.twitter.com/UofYO0PxY4
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) December 8, 2024
Maresca took over in the summer after leading Leicester to promotion last season and the Italian has been hugely impressive so far at Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea showed mental strength – Maresca
Asked if he had been surprised by the speed of their progress, he told BBC Radio 5 Live: “Absolutely, 100 per cent. We are ahead of my expectations in terms of the way we play on the ball, off the ball and in terms of results.
“We changed seven players again tonight and we will make changes on Thursday and Sunday because they are good and they all deserve to play.
“Mentally we showed how strong we are. Overall we deserved to win the game.
“On the ball I think, even when we conceded the two goals, we played very well. The team was playing very well and after the second half, until the last five minutes we conceded absolutely nothing and created chances. We deserved to win the game.”
Frozen Palmer Stars
Palmer was again outstanding, the England international producing a superb performance with his two goals – the second spot-kick from a delightful Panenka.
“I’ve known Cole for a long time and I’ve always trusted him in every way,” Maresca added. “He’s a fantastic guy. He’s learning how to play games when he’s marked man-to-man, (Yves) Bissouma was with him the whole game.
“He is learning, improving and scoring goals. That makes him happy and it makes us happy.”
Asked about Cucurella’s boots, Maresca said: “He told me after the game that he was trying to bring excitement to the game!
“It’s more of a question for Marc. They are mature enough to decide what boots they need for the game. The most important thing is that we were 2-0 but we continued in the same way to create chances.”
