Enzo Maresca ended last night’s press conference with some unusually effusive praise for some of his young players.
Asked about Tyrique George, who had scored his first senior goal, Maresca was delighted to praise him, but also pointed unprompted to the great all around showing of George’s academy colleague Josh Acheampong, who played in 3 different positions through the course of the game, in a tough away atmosphere, and excelled in all of them.
Maresca declared himself to be in “love” with the teenager, who he has had a funny old time with. After bringing him into the Premier League to start in January and calling him the best player on the pitch, Maresca took him off against Bournemouth two weeks later and basically blamed him for one of the Cherries’ goals.
Since then, Acheampong has played 55 minutes total, spread across 3 appearances. But clearly Maresca hadn’t gone off him totally, and last night he was very deliberate in reminding him how much he’s rated.
Maresca’s tough love pays off with rapid development of youngsters
In his piece for the Athletic, Liam Twomey was even willing to say that Maresca’s “tough love” use of Acheampong and George was helping their development:
“Maresca’s nuanced handling of Acheampong and George may have given Chelsea two more players capable of meaningful contributions,” Twomey speculated.
That might have a touch of wishful thinking – if anything, the fact that the pair played so well proves to us that they should have featured more this season.
But we can see the logic too, and if they continue to play in this tournament all the way to the final we can consider them very well handled by the coach.
Now we want to see them get some league chances too…
