Every word Enzo Maresca said on Gittens transfer, Madueke future, Estevao hopes, Chelsea victory

Enzo Maresca conducted his post-match press conference in the early hours of Saturday morning after his Chelsea team progressed into the FIFA Club World Cup semi-final with a victory over Palmeiras in Philadelphia.

Cole Palmer handed the Blues the lead on 16 minutes before Estevao Willian, soon to be a Chelsea player, scored a wonderful equalising goal not long into the second-half. Malo Gusto's effort was turned into his own net by Agustin Giay to book the Blues into the semi-final.

Maresca faced the press post-match to react to what we witnessed. Bobby Vincent was in attendance and he has taken down every word the Chelsea head coach had to say:

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How would you analyse the match and what percentage of luck do you think Chelsea had?

Personally, I think the first half we were in control of the game. We didn't concede nothing. We scored the goal and we could score some more goals. Second half, they started better than us, they scored. The game changed a little bit, the dynamic changed. But then I think the last 20-25 minutes we were in control again. I think we deserved to win the game without being lucky.

Latest on the future of Noni Madueke?

Noni has been very important for us during this season. Today, again, he has been important. But my message to the players and to the club is that I want just players that are happy to be with us. The ones that are not happy, they are free to go. It's not for Noni, it's for all the players we have. But again, Noni has been very good during the season and very good tonight.

I don't want to rain on your parade, but Chelsea were fined today by UEFA. It was a big fine for breaking their squad costs and their financial controls. Part of that was that the club were going to have to sell players to balance books. How much has that filtered through to you today? I know you have other things to do, but have you given it any thought? Because it does put pressure on the players as well, knowing that this is going to have to happen.

Your question and your answer. I already struggled to do my job. Imagine if I started to do a different job. To be honest, there are things that I don't pay attention to. I just pay attention to how to work day by day with the players. How can I improve them? How can I improve the team? And try to win as much as we can.

Can you tell us a bit, just going forward, how Estevao Willian fits into your plan? What should we expect? And we also saw, I think Jamie Gittens was around on the pitch. How does he fit into the plan?

Jamie was here tonight, he was on the pitch. And he will be with us probably one more day, two days more. And then he will go for a holiday and come back when we're going to start the new season.

Estevao, I spoke with him for the first time after the game. I told him that it's been the perfect night because we won, he scored. So it's been perfect for us and for him.

The second goal obviously came from a short corner. And it seems like the majority of your corners this summer have been from short corners. Has that been something you've been working on specifically?

Yeah. Since we started this competition, we have a new structure in corner. And the reason why is because we are always looking to improve things. And offensively, during the Premier League, I think if we want to be dangerous, we need to improve things. So since the Club World Cup started, we have a new structure. Most of the time we try to play short, but also we have the long option.

Chelsea players shown they're able to overcome adversity?

Yeah, as you said, Moi [Caicedo] was suspended. Romeo [Lavia], unfortunately, he had a small muscle problem. And Reece, he felt something during the warm-up. We think that it's tightness, so we prefer not to take any risk for him. And we decided to start with Andrey [Santos]. I think now we are one year together. We know each other much, much better compared to one year ago. And with different structure, different way to play, I think the players, they are getting better and better.

What stands out about your semi-final opponents, Fluminense?

Until today, I was focused on Palmeiras. But once again, as I said yesterday, show how good is the Brazilian football. From tomorrow, I will start to be focused on Fluminense. I watched this afternoon's game. I watched some games that they have played. And you can see that they are very well organised. They have some very good players. The manager is doing a fantastic job.

And again, it will be the same final. The energy from the Brazilian team in this competition has been high energy. Probably the reason why is because you are starting now the season, while we are finishing the season. So, the energy is normal. It is different. And we try to deal with that in a different way.

You threw on Joao Pedro early. Will he play vs Fluminense with Liam Delap suspended?

Yes, since he arrived, the reason why we decided for him is because since he arrived, even if he was on holiday, he looks sharp, he looks good. And we gave him some minutes. Also, I think he was just inside when they scored. And I think since he was inside, him and Noni, I think, again, we were much better. So, we knew him very well. The reason why he's here is because we like him and we are sure that he's going to help us.

Estevao ready for physicality of Premier League?

Yes. Very good, very good. You can see that he's a huge talent. You can see that he's a fantastic player. And the only thing for me is when you come from South America or in general from the other part of the world, Europe, you need to adapt. So, we're going to help him to adapt.

First of all, to be happy, to continue to enjoy football. And we don't have any doubt because he's so good that he's going to be a very important player for Chelsea.

What qualities did you saw in Palmeiras?

They are defensively very good. The way they press, the way they are aggressive. And they are very dangerous in transition. So, when you prepare this kind of game, you have to prepare how you want to attack but also how you want to avoid transition. It's normal that you are not going to avoid for 95 minutes, 100 minutes transition.

It's going to happen that one, two, three times you are going to concede transition. And then tactically, we changed something. The last game against Benfica, we moved a little bit in a different way. Tonight, in this game, for a different reason, we moved in a different way. And I think the structure of the team also helped the players to get better and better.

You have a lot of fans in Ghana. And there has been a rumour about Chelsea going in for Mohammed Kudus. As a coach, personally, do you want Mohamed Kudus at Chelsea?

Mohammed is a West Ham player. And he is not our player, so I cannot say anything. The only thing I can say, I know Mohammed, I know Kudus since he was in Ajax. But he is a West Ham player.

Could you give us an insight into your conversations with Pedro Neto this morning?

Yeah. We spoke with Pedro yesterday and this morning and this afternoon. It was completely Pedro's decision to play or not to play. Indeed, he made a fantastic effort to play this game, to be with his teammates. And we really appreciate what he has done. And I just said to the players that this win is especially for him. Because we know how close he was and the effort that he has done. So, no doubt that we really appreciate what he decided at the end.