Enzo Maresca says Chelsea players know that talent alone is not enough

Enzo Maresca said his Chelsea players are aware that talent alone will not be sufficient to maintain the run of form that has taken them second in the Premier League.

Victory over Tottenham on Sunday will see them close the gap on leaders Liverpool to four points, though Maresca continues to insist his team are not in the title conversation.

The division’s youngest squad with an average age of just under 24, Chelsea’s inexperienced crop have improved markedly under their head coach’s leadership and are joint-top scorers ahead of the visit to north London.

Maresca has proved himself ruthless both in terms of player selection and the standards he publicly holds his squad to, calling out winger Noni Madueke and captain Reece James in recent weeks for falling short of his standards.

“The only thing I don’t allow is for them to drop, in terms of intensity or in terms of working hard,” he said. “The only way to reach something is that you work day by day really hard.

“This squad is full of talent. If you put the 25 players in this room and you pick one, you will pick one full of talent. But it’s not enough, if you don’t put together more things, you’re not going to win games.

“This is what they have to understand. Fortunately at the moment they are all aware of that.”

Last year’s meeting at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium produced one of the games of the season.

Spurs were top of the league at the start of November having won eight of manager Ange Postecoglou’s first 10 matches in charge while Chelsea were struggling for form under the recently-appointed Mauricio Pochettino.

A topsy-turvy encounter began with Dejan Kulusevski putting the hosts ahead and ended with nine-man Tottenham playing a ludicrously high defensive line as the Blues ran riot late on, Nicolas Jackson helping himself to a hat-trick in a 4-1 win.

Spurs went on to tumble down the league, eventually finishing just three points and one place above Chelsea.

“I don’t think we need Ange and Tottenham’s experience to understand that things can change quick,” said Maresca, who replaced Pochettino in June.

“Every season in football, in England or Spain or Italy, things can change quick. We’re aware of that.

“We are not thinking about in three games, four games, five games. We are just thinking about Sunday’s game.”

Maresca was asked whether he thought Tottenham fans might prefer to stay away rather than risk seeing their 11th-place team beaten by their arch rivals.

“The fans are going to be there, no doubt,” he said. “We are not favourites. Not because we are second in the table are we favourites.”