Enzo Maresca has vowed to breathe fresh life into Chelsea’s rivalry with Liverpool - but insists Sunday’s Anfield clash is not a meeting of two Premier League title contenders.
Maresca has made an impressive start to his Chelsea tenure, with his side currently sitting fourth in the table having gone unbeaten since losing to Manchester City on the season’s opening day.
That, though, has been trumped by Arne Slot’s start at Liverpool, with the Reds top of the division midway through October in their first campaign post-Jurgen Klopp.
Champions City and back-to-back runners-up Arsenal remain title favourites, but the form of Liverpool and Chelsea has raised hopes that this season’s race may not be a two-horse affair.
However, Maresca insists that his team, who would move within a point of Liverpool by winning at Anfield, are not yet ready to contend.
“I don’t see, in this moment, Chelsea as close to these kinds of clubs for many, many reasons,” said Maresca, whose team also face Manchester United, Newcastle and Arsenal in a daunting run of fixtures between now and the next international break.
"For sure we work every day to be closer to that club. Knowing that requires work together, day by day, with time, to get close.
“The only way to try to be close is to be focused on the things we need to improve. To think where we can be in four games, it is difficult. The only thing I can say is we will try to do our best on Sunday to play a good game and then to get the points.”
The rivalry between Liverpool and Chelsea has mellowed somewhat from its peak in the mid-noughties, when the likes of Jose Mourinho and Rafael Benitez were at loggerheads and the sides met in five successive Champions League campaigns.
Under Klopp, Liverpool won four successive finals against Chelsea - including in last season’s Carabao Cup - and the Reds’ greater concern during the German’s tenure was with trying to match Manchester City.
“Probably in the last five, six, seven, eight years, Liverpool were more contenders with City, they were always very, very close for the Premier League and even Champions League,” said Maresca, who witnessed the rivalry first hand as part of Pep Guardiola’s coaching staff. “But hopefully, we can be again there in both, competing for titles.”
