Fresh from a blistering start to the season with Chelsea, including a hat-trick at Molineux, Noni Madueke earned a call-up to the England senior squad for the first time.

Having watched on from the bench as the Three Lions defeated Ireland in Dublin, Madueke was handed his chance to play by Lee Carsley midway through the second half of England’s home fixture with Finland. He promptly registered an assist for Harry Kane to make it 2-0, and Maresca expressed his delight at the next step taken in Madueke’s development.

‘It’s a big achievement for all the players to join their international team, especially for Noni,’ Maresca told us.

‘We feel very happy for him. He is doing well. The only thing he has to do is not drop a little bit, otherwise it’s no good for him and he is going to lose all the good things he has done until now. He has to continue to work well, in the proper way.

‘We feel happy for him, for Levi [Colwill] and the Portuguese guys like Renato [Veiga], as it was the first international call for him too, so I’m happy for all of them. For all of the players,’ added Maresca.

Back at Cobham, the head coach has already had the chance to work with Jadon Sancho after the winger completed a loan move from Manchester United. It has been a useful period getting the 24-year-old up to speed with his methodology before the action resumes at Bournemouth on Saturday.

‘He has been exactly what I expected,’ assessed Maresca, when asked.

‘He’s a very good player, a one-v-one player with quality in the last third. I’m sure he’s going to help us.’

Maresca has spoken about wanting his wingers isolating defenders and he explained to us exactly why that is an important element of his strategy, and something we have already seen Madueke fulfil to great effect this term.

He said: ‘Most of the time our wingers have the chance to be one-v-one ten times during the game. For every winger it’s a dream come true to play forward and have the chance to go one-v-one. We allow them during the game to go one-v-one at different times.

‘The best one for us in this moment has been Noni. In pre-season he scored different goals, created different chances. Every time he received the ball he can go one-v-one. Noni is doing fantastic, but all our wingers are working well.’

We hope to see more evidence of that at the Vitality Stadium!