Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers is a man who knows Chelsea very well having gone through the early years of his coaching development at the London club.
The last couple of years have seen his career intertwine with Enzo Maresca, too. The Italian ended up at Rodgers’ old side Leicester City to help them back to the English Premier League and he was even heavily linked with the Celtic job before the Irishman’s return.
Maresca is a name pretty well known to Bhoys supporters as a result. There’s intrigue from across the footballing world about how his spell at Stamford Bridge will go.
Ahead of Celtic and Chelsea meeting in Indiana on Saturday, Rodgers was asked about the task that the incoming Blues manager has on his hands in his debut season in the English top-flight.
Brendan Rodgers’ verdict on the Chelsea challenges ahead
The Bhoys boss said in a media conference [Celtic FC]: “Firstly, I was surprised about Mauricio [Pochettino] because I think after the challenges at the beginning you saw towards the end what he was trying to do and the players buying into that. I was disappointed for him that he couldn’t continue with his work.
“Enzo’s coming in obviously having done very, very well at Leicester getting them back to the Premier League. It’s a totally different challenge – the expectation around Chelsea, to be one of the most successful clubs in the world, that will still be there within the support base.
“But they’ve got some fantastic players and I’m sure Enzo and his staff will do a really, really good job there. He’s just at the beginning of the process now trying to understand and convince the players. As always, the challenge when you go into a new club is to convince the players how you want to play.
“I think Enzo will be very clear in how he wants to work. We’ve seen that in the Wrexham game and I’ve seen his work at Leicester. That’s the first task at any club you go into. But certainly, Chelsea is a club that will want to be successful.
“It feels like there’s a process at Chelsea in terms of where they want to go get to. They’ve brought in a lot of really talented young players who are going to develop and improve with good coaching and good management.”
Celtic vs Chelsea last step for the Bhoys of summer
Celtic have enjoyed a successful USA tour regardless of how the result turns out against Maresca’s Chelsea.
They impressed against DC United and Manchester City, also putting in the hard work necessary for the new campaign with regular training sessions throughout their stint abroad.
With a lot of charity outreach and brand events, too, the club have had a very productive pre-season programme.
Signing off with a strong performance against Chelsea would be the perfect way to cap things off ahead of a return to Lennoxtown next week and a big build-up to the Scottish Premiership kick-off against Kilmarnock.
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