CHELSEA FC 🏆🔵

Enzo Maresca on risking Moises Caicedo vs Leicester despite him being one booking away from a suspension:

"We need to win games. We cannot plan giving Moi a rest thinking he can play Arsenal. We need to win against Leicester."

"The position of Moises, if you see his background, last year he had 11-12 yellow cards, the year before the same, because he's a midfielder. You are in the traffic. Sometimes you have to make some fouls. It's normal."

"Hopefully, he can avoid that until the end, knowing that it's probably difficult."

On Romeo Lavia:

"The good thing is we have Romeo now. He's started [training] with us already. He can be back. He could be fit, but just not playing from the start. We need to be ready."

"The most important thing, let me say, is that we need our fans on Sunday – 95 minutes, 100 minutes, we need to win the game. That is the most important thing. In this moment, I'm focused on us."

On Leicester players holding up a sign saying 'Enzo, I miss you' at Christmas party:

"No [I didn't see the sign]. I try to create a relationship with players where, at the end, I feel very close to them and they probably feel very close to me."

"This is probably the only reason [for the sign]. I still speak with many of Leicester's players because we had a fantastic season last year, and I'm very close to some of them."

On Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall:

"At the beginning, he struggled a little to accept that he was not playing many games. Now, probably after a while, he has realized that he has to be calm, he has to understand. He's much better now."

"He played an important game [vs Copenhagen] from the start. That shows that I really trust Kiernan. Kiernan knows that Cole [Palmer] plays there, Enzo plays there, Christo [Nkunku] plays there. So we have, many players in terms of quality."

“Wes is back and can be involved on Sunday”

[via Kiernan Gill x Ben Jacobs]

🗣 Levi Colwill: "I think with Maresca, the way he thinks about football is light years above everyone else. Of course, I have been blessed with loads of different managers that have been amazing.

He is pushing me to understand football in a different way. That's why I'm very blessed to play football under him and learn as much as possible."

Enzo Maresca has said he sees Reece James as a midfielder.

Enzo Maresca on Copenhagen win:

"Very important for many reasons. It was way, it's a knockout game. They surprised us. They played with a line of five, so we didn't expect that."

On Malo Gusto injury:

"He's okay and he's better. They told me he can be ready for Sunday's game, so hopefully we can have him for Sunday."

On Reece James:

"We know how important he is for us. He's our captain, a fantastic player. We need him fit, so that is our duty, our target because for sure he is going to help us."

"You can ask Reece [James], when I signed for Chelsea, the day after I sent him a video about seeing him as a midfielder. I see Reece as a midfielder. Since day one. I sent him a clip when he was on holiday about how he can be a midfielder."

"He has played in full-back, central defender, so the main target for us is to keep him fit. He can play in many positions because the good players can play in many positions."

"When you watch a player you sometimes need to use imagination and imagining a player doing something. I watched some of his games when he was on loan at Wigan where he scored a fantastic goal from 25 or 30 metres."

On Chelsea being sloppy in defence:

"We can avoid that. It's football, it can happen. Now 90 minutes have finished and now we have 90 more minutes against them."

"The main game for us is Sunday's game, at home and we need our fans for 100 minutes behind the team and pushing the team."

"If we can win against Leicester on Sunday, we can do one more step to finishing in the Champions League... top four or top five, I do not know."

"The best thing about Reece [James] at the moment is he is helping the team with leadership."

[via Bobby Vincent - Football London]

YELLOW CARD: Marcos Lopez [misses the second leg].