‘The doubts were from outside’ – what Champions League means to Chelsea

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‘The doubts were from outside’ – what Champions League means to Chelsea

Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca left Nottingham Forest’s City Ground aiming a swear word at his critics.

In fairness, the Italian did self-censor it, but was keen to stress he “didn’t have any doubt about the players. The doubt was from outside”.

His comments followed a vital 1-0 win in which homegrown defender Levi Colwill tapped in the winner at the far post, and he then celebrated with the away supporters.

They all knew the significance of that goal in the 1-0 win at the City Ground to qualify for the Champions League, with co-controlling owners Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali among the backroom staff celebrating on the pitch.

It now means, regardless of what happens in the Conference League final against Real Betis on Wednesday, Chelsea can finally point to a season being a tangible success since both Roman Abramovich and Thomas Tuchel departed west London.

Multiple senior figures played down the importance of qualifying for Europe’s elite competition, which is worth an estimated £80m-£100m, for Premier League profit and sustainability rule (PSR) reasons. They also said that qualification was not crucial for Maresca to stay in the job as they always planned to review his management after two full seasons.

However, this is important for the optics of this project which has invested £1.7bn in what was the youngest average age for starting XIs across a Premier League season – just 24 years and 36 days.

When asked about Chelsea’s critics, in a season where there has been fringe fan protests, Maresca said: “I didn’t have any doubt about the players. The doubt was from outside. All the ones that have the answers or the ones that have the truth, they were saying that we are too young, we are not good enough, they were waiting for Aston Villa to drop points for us to achieve the Champions League.

“They were saying that we were not able to win on this pitch because we are too young, because we are not experienced.

“Unfortunately for them, they have all been wrong. All the ones that have the truth and have the answer to everything.

“So in English, how you say? [expletive deleted] to all of them, because the players deserve that. The effort they have been doing is fantastic.”

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