Chelsea legend Frank Lebouef has accused Enzo Maresca of telling a lie following his claim that he never doubted his team in the wake of their triumphant end to the season.
A turbulent first season at the helm has culminated in success for the forthright Italian, who masterminded Champions League qualification and added a new piece of silverware to the Chelsea trophy cabinet following last night’s 4-1 win over Real Betis.
The Blues were forced to come from behind in Poland, but produced a rousing second half salvage operation, led by Cole Palmer who produced a man of the match display.
It was a result that represented further vindication for Maresca who used his press conference following last weekend’s win over Nottingham Forest to take a pop at the critics who had doubted him and his young team over the course of the season.
Maresca claimed that his confidence never wavered despite a difficult spell after Christmas that saw Chelsea drop out of the title race following a run of six defeat in 11 games in all competitions.
Get personalised updates on Chelsea every day
Wake up to find news on your club in your inbox every morning with Metro’s Football Newsletter.
Sign up to our newsletter and then select your team in the link we’ll send you so we can get football news tailored to you.
Lebouef, however, believes the former Leicester City boss would undoubtedly have been worried about his squad’s capacity to deal with the pressure that centred on him amid such a worrying run of form.
He told ESPN FC: ‘He is right and he has a right to brag. He finished fourth in the league and won the Conference League today and we didn’t think he could finish fourth and that’s the reality.
‘But his first sentence is a lie. He said he never had doubts about his team. Yeah, he had doubts like everybody else, even the players had doubts about the capacity of consistency.
‘As we said this season in the Premier League inconsistency is the word of the season. Nobody has been consistent, even Liverpool hasn’t been consistent.
‘Chelsea for some people they were in the race for the title in December. I said wait for the first defeat and what happened? They went down. No doubt Mr Maresca? Yes you had doubt, of course you had doubts.’
Lebouef, who made nearly 150 Premier League appearances for Chelsea, was, however, full of praise for the way in which Maresca created a siege mentality and was able to drag his young squad over the line.
What Enzo Maresca told his critics
I didn’t have any doubt about the players. The doubt was from outside.’
‘All the ones that have the answers or the ones that have the truth, they were saying that we are too young, we are not good enough, they were waiting for Aston Villa to drop points for us to achieve the Champions League.
‘They were saying that we were not able to win on this pitch because we are too young, because we are not experienced. Unfortunately for them, they have all been wrong. All the ones that have the truth and have the answer to everything.
‘So in English, how you say? F off to all of them, because the players deserve that. The effort they have been doing is fantastic.
‘I feel part of their improvement, the way they grew through the season, and I feel especially proud for that because they are a fantastic group, a fantastic squad. They are good boys, they work hard, they try to help each other.
‘And I said, probably most of the time, it was from outside, that we were not good enough, we were too young, we don’t have a leader, blah, blah, blah, these kind of things. But at the end, it all comes from results.’
He added: ‘They reacted well, so well done to the players, well done to Maresca, he made great choices, he went back to his vertical game and we are sorry if we said some stuff he didn’t like.
‘But we had to say the truth because that’s what we were seeing. It’s legitimate to comment on what we see and we have nothing against Chelsea, I love the club but I have to say the reality of it.
‘The reality was they were inconsistent they are young and inexperienced and if they went to the fourth spot it’s mostly because of their courage, their tenacity but also because the others gave up.’