Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca is ‘bald and with a beard’, but he does not play the same as those he is compared to. His team is much more rigid and positional. He commented on his frustrations with such comparisons to Pep Guardiola in The Athletic.

What I don’t like is people, or you, or fans, or the club expecting the same football that Manchester City is doing, because when I joined Leicester and I met the chairman and sporting director, they asked me, ‘We want to change the style and we want to play the same way that City play’. And I told them, ‘We don’t have the same players and I am not the same manager’. The same thing when I met Chelsea. I said, ‘The idea is that idea, but probably we need time because the players also need to understand what way we want to play and it’s a bit different’.

[…] It is something I struggle a little bit with. ‘Because he’s bald and with a beard, he wants to play the same [as Pep Guardiola].’ No, I don’t. I fell in love with that idea, but that does not mean it is exactly the same.

When you watch Manchester City now, especially towards the end of the season, they are much more fluid. It is moving closer and closer to a hybrid of non-zonal and zonal attacking principles. I don’t think it will ever become completely non-zonal under Guardiola; he wants too much control, but when I watch Chelsea in preseason or Leicester City last season, I see fewer similarities.

It is born from the same idea, but watching Chelsea in preseason gives you a greater appreciation for how much freedom he is giving to the players. Guardiola is releasing more and more control.

Enzo Maresca on watching Chelsea last season out of possession:

Sometimes it looks like an excuse but for instance, everyone that watches us is focused on what we do with the ball, we build from behind. But I watched many, many games last season of Chelsea and I almost never saw man-to-man high pressing. They always wait a little bit. Since we started, we have decided to go man-to-man because it is our way, so aggressive. It’s a big change.

This was part of Juanma Lillo’s warning. We all have preferences, but not all football has to be the same. Chelsea did not defend well last season. I don’t think Maresca wants it to be the same, although he is alluding to the fact that it was unorthodox last season. But there are other ways of defending that work other than defending man-to-man. I don’t have a problem with more passive approaches, like that used by Manchester City and Liverpool last season in transition.

Enzo Maresca on how much freedom he will give Cole Palmer:

I had Cole one year so I know him. I know he likes a little bit of freedom. But if Cole is what he is now, it’s because he learned for 10 to 15 years the way he learned at Manchester City.

Cole Palmer was given freedom in the U21 team for England, at Chelsea under Pochettinho last season, and in the Euro’s for England under Gareth Southgate in the summer. He excelled on all three teams. At Manchester City, he played a completely different role and did not reach the same heights. We will never know if he would have reached the same heights if he had stayed at City. He likely would have if he were there this season because the players are now allowed to roam from their positions.

Maresca is hinting that he won’t allow Palmer to roam from his position; he won’t have the same freedom that gave him major success last season. Before, he had 50 yards to operate in on both sides of the pitch; now he’ll have 20 yards in a zone on one side; how will that impact his output, and will he become secondary to the more athletic players like at Manchester City, or can he adapt to a more limiting environment? He has so much to give but I think managers like Mauricio Pochettinho, Ange Postecoglou, and Thiago Motta would get the most out of him.