Ex-Chelsea star Gus Poyet believes that Enzo Maresca deserves more protection from the club with the team going through a difficult spell of form.

Speaking exclusively to ChelseaNews.com (courtesy of Makthavare.se), Poyet said that Maresca is simply being honest about the team’s situation in press conferences and it is up to the Blues’ hierarchy to publicly outline what the club’s ambitions are this season:

“It’s a young team that had a big improvement and sometimes when you improve that much and maintain the improvement during the months, naturally, you’re going to have a little bit of a dip in form. The problem is that everything now is so public and so negative and so crazy that maybe they got affected a little bit more than what you would expect. Because they know it’s every press conference there is like a bad question and they analyse the answer.”

“I mean Maresca is trying to be honest in the press conference and he’s getting destroyed for being honest. I will say to the press, ‘Do you want me to lie then?’ ‘Do I need to be dishonest or do you want me to tell you rubbish?’. The world that we live in, you know, honest people get criticised. OK, fair enough. In this moment in time, he needs help from the club. I think it’s the most important thing. The club needs to come out and say what is the aim of the club, what they’re expecting to do and then go from there.”

Chelsea have to manage expectations

As Poyet mentions, with the club having performed so well before Christmas, Maresca was hoisted by his own success in some respects. He over-delivered initially and that has led to many journalists seeking answers for why things have started to go wrong now.

Of course, with the amount of money spent, supporters should be seeing better results out on the pitch but it does take time to build a team. Maresca can’t be expected to be challenging in his first season in the job.

Maresca hasn’t been helped by the club’s actions in the transfer market

To be fair to fans, most of their ire has been directed towards the club’s sporting directors – Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley –  who have overseen the club’s most recent transfer windows.

If the right decisions had been made on recruitment – in terms of signing an experienced goalkeeper, centre-back and striker – Maresca may not have experienced this current dip in form and the resulting fallout.

Read more from our exclusive with Gus Poyet as he issues his verdict on Jadon Sancho