Speaking at his press conference ahead of our trip to Tottenham on Sunday, Maresca underlined his role at the club when asked why he has made such a successful start to life at Stamford Bridge. The Blues head into the weekend's fixtures in second place in the table and have enjoyed a flawless European campaign so far, too.

‘The only focus is improving players and the team, no more than that,’ stressed Maresca. ‘I get paid for this, to do my job with the players and the team, so I focus on that and try to give my best every day.

‘I spend many hours understanding how I can help the players improve and to convince them. Today, we just finished the session and the last half-hour was just an extra session for some of the players to try to improve them.

‘We watch games, review games, look at how they can improve. I have four or five assistant coaches upstairs that spend time looking at the small details about position, control with the right foot, control with the left, play with the right, play with the left. These kinds of things.’

Allied to work on the pitch is a desire of Maresca’s to build positive personal relationships with his squad off it.

That can present itself in different ways depending on the player. Following post-match comments he made at Southampton about Noni Madueke’s room for improvement, Maresca explained it is simply another method at his disposal to try to maximise his players’ abilities.

‘The only reason I said this the other day is I want the best for Noni,’ Maresca stated. ‘The only way to get the best from him is to push him every time. Overall he has been working well since we started. Sometimes he drops a little bit and he is not allowed to drop.

'In terms of numbers, he is doing fantastic, goals, assists, off the ball when we ask him to defend and to press he is doing very well.

‘The way I like to have a relationship with the players is to be close,’ added the head coach. ‘In the past at Leicester, I had a fantastic relationship with the players. It’s the same I’m trying to do here.

‘When you say something they don’t like, they think it's because you don’t want to be close, but it’s actually the way to be close and show them I take care of them.'