Maresca tips his hat to Jamie Vardy ahead of Leicester clash by calling him the “greatest English striker of his generation”.
Maresca tips his hat to his former striker Jamie Vardy as Chelsea set to lock horns against the Italian manager’s former side.
At the King Power Stadium on Saturday, the Italian is getting ready for a reunion with the 37-year-old forward and his old team.
Regarding Vardy, who has scored four goals and started all ten of Leicester’s Premier League games this season, Maresca stated, “Vardy is fantastic and people don’t realise how good he is.
“I know that England has been quite lucky with strikers, like Kane, Rooney and many others, but if you ask me he has been the best one.
“He can do many things, like run in behind and finish, but the best thing for me is his open mind.
“Last year he changed the way he was playing by dropping in, linking the play and he still wants to learn. But of course he still has the one thing that is most difficult to find, which is to score goals.
“He can be out for one week, without training, and play on the Saturday or Sunday and he’s the one who scores.”
When asked whether his Chelsea forwards are as easy to manage, Maresca added: “It is easy to coach Nico [Jackson] and Christo [Nkunku] also.
“But the biggest difference between Nico, Christo and Jamie is that, with age, you know exactly what you need every day, because of the experience. When you are young, you don’t know exactly what you need day by day to arrive at the game 100 per cent. That was the big difference between them.”