It is something the Italian has continually tried to develop, whether that be in his interviews with the media or when he and the players thank our supporters after games.

And as the Blues welcome another London rival, West Ham United, to Stamford Bridge on Monday night, Maresca has spoken once again about the crucial role our fans play.

Maresca said: 'We need the fans, the players need them. For different reasons, they might not be happy with the players or manager [but] for sure, we need their support because they have to trust our direction.

'I am the first one that if I see something I don’t like, I don’t accept that. The fans can be happy in terms of the way they [the players] try to work every day and embrace all the situations we had this season, and I’m sure at the end we will be there fighting for something.’

Maresca insists on hard work and commitment in training every day, something which was highlighted once more when Josh Acheampong and Tyrique George spoke to us earlier this week.

The players have been putting in the work this week at Cobham and will do so once again over this weekend as we look to make it back-to-back home victories, following last week's 3-1 win over Wolverhampton Wanderers and Saturday's defeat to Manchester City by the same scoreline.

The Blues are just one point behind fourth-place City in the table, and only four below Nottingham Forest in third, in what is Maresca's first season in charge of the club.

The 44-year-old is always looking at how he can improve himself as a coach and his team, and highlighted how the Blues need to become more clinical in both boxes if they are to improve their recent form.

Maresca said: 'In all the games we have had chances to score, even in the last game we could score to go 2-0 up and the game would be different.

'I know we are struggling for results in this moment but the performance are there. In some games, the performance hasn’t been there for 90 or 100 minutes and you need that. It’s been for 70 minutes, 60 minutes or 45 minutes. You need to be there for 100 minutes and that is for sure something we need to improve.

'But for me, the big difference in recent games is inside the box. We have conceded goals we can avoid and haven’t scored goals that in a different moment of the season we have scored. So we have to continue and understand how we can improve these kind of things.’