Social442
Homepage 2mos ago
Enzo Maresca on Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and improving against Club America
Source:Homepage |

Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall is in contention to make his first Chelsea appearance against Club America, with head coach Enzo Maresca reiterating the Blues' focus is on improving their performance and integrating his new style of play, rather than securing results in pre-season.

Dewsbury-Hall joined Chelsea from Leicester City at the beginning of July but has not featured in the first two pre-season matches due to his recovery from injury.

However, Chelsea head coach Maresca, who worked with Dewsbury-Hall at Leicester City, confirmed the midfielder could feature in the game with Club America at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Wednesday night.

Maresca said: 'Kiernan is already back with us and has done some sessions so he can be involved in tomorrow's game. That is good news.'

Chelsea's pre-season kicked off with a 2-2 draw against Wrexham on July 24 before suffering a 4-1 loss to Celtic on Saturday.

The Scottish champions were in their fifth game of the summer, with their SPL title defence starting this weekend, whereas many of the Blues players were continuing their return to full fitness after lengthy layoffs through injury.

The Blues will face a similar challenge against Mexican side Club America, who are four games into their Liga MX season.

And Maresca said: 'In terms of our improvements [from the Celtic game], hopefully our physical conditioning can be better because we played a few days before, [with the players featuring for] 45 minutes to one hour and some of them played 90 minutes so hopefully our physicality can be better.

'Club America are a team who are already competing in their competition so for sure they would want to be ahead of us in that kind of thing but we have to follow our way, follow our process on the ball and off the ball in the way we want to be once the season starts.

'Tomorrow's game and the next game is like a training session in the way we want to see things improve and it (improving) is our focus at the moment.'

During his pre-match press conference, Maresca was asked whether he needed to win the Club America match on Wednesday to build confidence and help the players mentally ahead of two tough matches against the last two Champions League winners, Manchester City and Real Madrid.

Maresca replied: 'You always need to win because it is important but in this moment, if we win on Wednesday, then I don't think it will be mentally better against Manchester City or Real Madrid because what I am trying to tell them, and the message I am trying to send to them, is that at the moment we need to improve ourselves on the ball and off the ball and to prepare ourselves in the way we want to play during the season. That is our main focus. And then, I have doubt, that the results will come.'

Chelsea vs Club America match tickets Tickets for the match at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium can be purchased here, plus Club Chelsea hospitality packages are also available.

Other Chelsea tickets Click on the links below to buy tickets for our other games in the USA:

Chelsea vs Manchester City - Saturday 3 August at Ohio Stadium in Columbus, Ohio - click for tickets or buy Club Chelsea hospitality packages.

Chelsea vs Real Madrid - Tuesday 6 August at Bank of America Stadium, Charlotte, North Carolina - click for tickets or buy Club Chelsea hospitality packages.