For a manager who had spent a lot of this season insisting the Premier League table did not yet bear relevance, Enzo Maresca is suddenly putting a peculiar amount of stock in how much of it Chelsea have spent in the top four.
On Wednesday, he insisted that the fact his side occupied a Champions League position for a good chunk of the campaign, compared to “zero times” in the last two years, stands as proof of their progress since his arrival. Of course, that rather ignores the fact that Chelsea have regressed and now sit sixth.
