Chelsea impressed at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday evening as we swept Southampton aside with a 4-0 win.

Goals from Christopher Nkunku, Pedro Neto and Levi Colwill fired us into a healthy lead before the half-time break, with Marc Cucurella adding the icing on the cake in the second period.

However, it wasn’t just the players on the scoresheet who caught Maresca’s eye against the Saints as Fernandez impressed once again.

‘He behaved as a leader and he is doing top, fantastic,’ said Maresca, when asked about Fernandez’s performance immediately after the game.

‘For sure Enzo has taken a step forward in that sense. He is showing how good a leader he is, how good he is on the ball, how good he is off the ball and we are delighted with him.’

There was also praise for Neto, who excelled once again as our No.9.

Neto netted our second goal by smashing in at the near post from Nkunku’s pass, and then teed up Colwill for the third with a teasing free-kick which curled towards the back post.

The performance was even more impressive given the Portuguese winger did so from an unfamiliar position, filling in as our No.9 during the absence of both Nicolas Jackson and Marc Guiu due to injury.

Maresca has been looking for a solution to the position while Jackson and Guiu remain sidelined and feels Neto is showing he could be the answer, with his options also boosted by the use of teenagers Tyrique George and Shumaira Mheuka in that role off the bench later in the game.

Maresca said: ‘I’ve said many times, unfortunately on the transfer deadline day we lost the two strikers, so we needed to find some different solutions.

‘We tried one game with Cole [Palmer], we tried the other game with Christo, both games against Brighton away. It didn’t work well, so the week after we tried with Pedro during the week and we saw that it could work.

‘I think at Villa away he did fantastic and tonight again. He probably gave us a threat in behind because he’s not just receiving the ball to feet, he also likes to attack in behind, something that probably Cole and Christo struggle with. So for us it’s important because he’s a threat.

‘Then at the end we used two young guys from the Academy, Tyrique and then Shimi. They were born in 2006 and 2007, so that also showed the club is working in the right way with young players from the Academy and I think that is important.’