Enzo Maresca gives Chelsea star dressing down despite scoring against Southampton

Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca has lashed out at Noni Madueke, despite the fact the Blues winger bagged a goal during his side’s 5-1 thrashing of Southampton on Wednesday evening. Madueke returned to the starting line-up after being dropped for the clash with Aston Villa on Sunday.

He netted his side’s third goal of the evening as the west London giants ran riot on the south coast.

But the 22-year-old was guilty of missing a string of chances in the second half when his team were well out of sight.

He was eventually replaced by Jadon Sancho midway through the second period, with the Manchester United loanee adding the final goal of the game.

“Noni can do much more,” Maresca explained after the match. “When he scores and assists and is happy, he starts to drop a little bit.

“The reason he was not playing [against Villa] is because of the way he was training. When he scores one, he needs to keep trying to score and assist. Noni needs to understand he has to work more and he can be much, much, much better.”

And during his post-match press conference, the Italian dug into Sunday’s snubbing further as he stated: “Also because there are players behind that [who] are ready. We have four wingers that are very good. In the moment that one of them drops for whatever reason, there is one ready.”

Madueke came off the bench with 18 minutes remaining against the Villans and teed up Cole Palmer for the third goal of the game as Maresca’s side ran out 3-0 winners.

He also bagged an assist against the Saints as Chelsea dominated from start to finish. But Maresca clearly feels the player has plenty of room to improve.

Chelsea went ahead just seven minutes into their clash with Southampton as Axel Disasi headed in from two yards. But they were pegged back four minutes later through a Joe Aribo strike.

Christopher Nkunku struck his second Premier League goal of the campaign on his second start soon afterwards, before Madueke put the visitors firmly in control. And when Saints defender Jack Stephens was sent off before half time forpulling Marc Cucurella’s hair, the contest was all but killed off.

Palmer added a fourth with 14 minutes remaining, before Sancho netted his first goal in a Chelsea shirt.

And Maresca added: “I am very happy with the five we scored. I’m not happy with the first 20 minutes, where we struggled. We prepared to press them man-to-man and we did not do that. After 15 or 20 minutes, we adjusted that and the game was much better.”