Enzo Maresca reveals Liam Delap Chelsea apology amid honest Thomas Frank and Tottenham admission

Liam Delap apologised to his Chelsea teammates for his “embarrassing” red card late on in the Blues’ Carabao Cup fourth round win over Wolves on Wednesday.

The 22-year-old striker was shown two yellow cards in the space of seven minutes at Molineux for two needless fouls and Enzo Maresca branded the sending off as an embarrassment post-match.

The Chelsea head coach confirmed that Delap, who is suspended for this evening’s Premier League trip to Tottenham, went straight into the dressing room after the full-time whistle to apologise to his colleagues.

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“Straight after the game in the changing room,” Maresca explained. “In the changing room after the game, he apologised to everyone.”

Delap was sent off on his return to the side against Wolves, after spending two months out with a hamstring injury. The Chelsea forward, who was signed for £30million over the summer transfer window, has not really got going at Stamford Bridge just yet due to a stop-start few months.

Maresca, though, is backing Delap to come good eventually: “There are two players in this team, three players in this team, that I know them better than the rest. Romeo Lavia, Cole Palmer and Liam Delap because I know them from the Under-21s [at Manchester City], four years ago.

“So I know Liam always and I know that Liam will be a fantastic player for us but there are some things like the rest that he needs to improve.”

Chelsea travel to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday as they look to bounce back from last weekend’s defeat to Sunderland. Spurs have won just one home game in the Premier League so far this season, and have taken just 13 points from their last 18 league matches on their own turf.

However, Maresca does not believe Thomas Frank’s men are showing too much of a vulnerability in north London. “Tottenham, I think they are doing very good,” said Maresca.” “They finished last season winning the Europa League. They started very good this season and also because it's a derby for sure it would be a difficult game.”

The Blues had over 68% possession against Sunderland last weekend but were unable to control the match at Stamford Bridge, and ended up losing to a 93rd-minute goal. While Chelsea came away victorious from Wolverhampton, Maresca’s side were not able to gain a tight grip on the Carabao Cup tie, particularly in the second-half, despite finishing the game with over 60% of the ball.

Maresca believes this is all a learning curve for his young squad and control will come over time. “In the Wednesday game, the first-half was completely under control,” the Italian said. “In the second-half, after the goal we conceded, we panicked a little bit. This is part of the process of this squad.

“We had one player born in ‘07, three players ‘06, four players ‘04, one player ‘03, another player ‘02, and the oldest player ‘97. The second oldest player born in ‘02. It’s part of their learning process.

“After the goal we panicked a little bit, so we took some risk. But they told me after the game that we were 21.4 or .5 average age. It’s normal. They are human beings, they are young, they need to improve, they need to understand, they need to live through some extra things to get better. For sure in the future we are going to be fantastic.”