Chelsea’s Maresca ‘expected more’ leadership from injured Reece James

Enzo Maresca has revealed he “expected more” from Reece James in terms of leadership when the Chelsea captain was injured, with the manager saying the dressing room lacks a “proper leader”

James returned from a long-term hamstring injury in the 2-1 defeat by Liverpool last Sunday, the right-back’s first appearance of the season, and as well as stepping straight back into the starting XI, James also immediately reclaimed the captain’s armband from Enzo Fernández. The 24-year-old delivered a decent display at Anfield but clearly did not impress his manager while sidelined.

“He is on the way, he’s doing well, he’s progressing, but from Reece I expected more also in terms of leadership,” Maresca said when asked how James managed his role as club captain while not playing. “Most of the time when they are captain, they think that because they are captain they have more, ‘because I am the captain, I expect that you give me more’. For me, because you are the captain you have to give more. You have to give more than the rest. And sometimes it’s, ‘OK, I am the captain I can give less’, no.

“He’s one of the captains and I expected from him, and his teammates expected from him, to give always more in terms of leadership in general.”

James missed Chelsea’s Conference League victory over Panathinaikos on Thursday as he rebuilds fitness but is expected to feature against Newcastle at Stamford Bridge on Sunday, and Maresca was keen to stress that it is not only the England international who, in his opinion, could be doing more to galvanise those around him, on and off the pitch.

“He [James] is a reserved guy, but not only him,” Maresca continued. “I think we don’t have a proper leader. We don’t have those guys. Probably Tosin [Adarabioyo] is one of the guys that is. So the rest we need to build them.”