Every word Enzo Maresca said on Cole Palmer fitness and the Chelsea star he is 'in love with'

Enzo Maresca has just completed his post-match press conference after Chelsea breezed past Legia Warsaw in the Conference League quarter-final first leg.

The Blues head coach led his side to a 3-0 victory in the capital of Poland. Tyrique George opened the scoring with his first senior goal and then Noni Madueke added another two not long after to give Chelsea a commanding lead going into next week's second leg at Stamford Bridge. Here is the full transcript from Maresca as he reflected on the game...

A perfect night in the end?

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"Yeah, we planned the game to try to have our best players for this game and to give also a chance to the rest players to recover energy and at the end, I think has been overall a professional performance, good result, probably second half we were much better compared to the first half for different reason.

"I said many times that we need to learn how to play different kind of games, you know, when you face Tottenham, we said many times that they try to high pressing, there is more space but when they sit back you have to be more quick on the ball, you have to try to have a shot from outside the box because they are all inside the box, so if you don't shoot it's difficult. Then the first goal I think came from wrist shot, you know, rebound, player was there, Ty was there, so yeah."

In terms of that first half, was it just a lack of tempo that was missing?

"It's not easy because it happens every time, if you watch last night, I watched Aston Villa vs PSG and from television you see lack of tempo but it's because it's what it is, you have to try to find solution, it's a different game and you have to learn and I think we have to learn to play that kind of games against team that they sit back.

"How can you learn? For sure you can be more quick on the ball, for sure you have to take some more risk when you are at the edge, you have to try to shoot like we scored the first one, so yeah."

How pleased are you for Tyrique George to have a moment like that?

"Very happy first of all for the Chelsea academy because it's one of our boys from the academy so very happy for him. He was quite good first half, take responsibility, second half in the middle probably was a bit better but the one that I fall in love tonight is Josh Acheampong because for me potentially he can be fantastic player, top player for this club, for the football in general and a good player show you that can play in different position and he can do good, he was full back, good, midfielder, good, central defender, good, so it's not about I play in that position or in that position, if you are good player you can be in different position.

"And tonight I fall in love with Josh because to be honest since we start I'm in love with him but tonight he show that he can be a very good player for this club."

Do you see him that way for the long term where situationally you will move him around and ask different things of him?

"He can be good in different position and the best thing from Josh also is that he's open, he wants to learn; 'Ok, full back? No problem, what do I have to do? 'Perfect, midfielder, what do I have to do?' and this is a player that they are, good player, they want to play in all position, they want to learn and Josh is doing that since we start, we use him in the way we are using Malo Gusto since we start, Cucurella, full back inside, central defender inside and he was very good tonight.

What did you make of the atmosphere?

"Yeah, I expect the environment and the reason why I said yesterday in the press conference. I watch different games especially at home and I know how is the environment so I expect that and I also said to the players that it's a privilege to play this kind of games with this environment so I think we did quite well."

Just a quick one on Cole Palmer, was the plan always to take him off at half time or is there any kind of knock because there was a period in the game where it looked like he might be struggling a bit?

"No, no, no, we planned for him and for Tosin 45 minutes so everything was planned."

And just a word on Christopher Nkunku as well, unfortunately he missed the penalty, what do you think he needs to do to regain confidence and get going in the running for the season?

"Probably in this moment is lack of confidence and the reason why is because he's missing goal or penalty like tonight but the only way to deal with that is to work hard every day because when you work hard for sure the reward is important, the problem is when you stop to work and the good thing about Christoph is that he's working well every day."