AS MESSAGES go, it was pretty clear.

None of those subtle mind games journalists must turn to when they have failed to shoehorn a line out of some dullard manager who has said nothing in a press conference.

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But then Enzo Maresca doesn’t do dodging and weaving in the public eye. He says it how it is in a calm, clipped manner.

And it’s straight to the point.

Like his curt and curious response to one innocent questioner asking whether Chelsea is his chance to forge a reputation for himself as a Premier League manager.

Neither Maresca’s tone nor his expression wavered as he replied: “I have a wife, four kids and a  mum and dad. I have a reputation already.”

Blunt if a little weird, right?

So when Chelsea’s fifth manager in 2½ years declared his steadily rejuvenating team are nowhere near as good as Manchester City or Arsenal because they have stuck by their respective managers, he was simply talking sense.

He was also telling his bosses at Stamford Bridge in no uncertain terms the sackings must stop if they want to get the club back to where they enjoyed so many trophy-laden seasons.

Some of his predecessors said the same and everyone else in the room rolled their eyes.

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When Maresca declared just a couple of weeks into the job that “I call the shots”, we yawned.

Yet there is a growing sense Maresca might be the man to finally tame Chelsea’s Wild West owners — the American-led posse of investment specialists and financiers who think they know everything but know very little about actual football.

He is spot on that his team is a long way back from City and Arsenal.
Sunday’s scrambled 1-1 draw at home to ten-man Nottingham Forest confirms that.

Chelsea occupy fourth place in the Premier League mainly by default because Tottenham, Newcastle and particularly Manchester United, are so unpredictable.

Yet it doesn’t take 20-20 vision to catch a glimpse of Maresca’s hand at work as he backs up his strong words with deeds.

Nowhere is that more noticeable than in Mykhailo Mudryk’s plight.
The winger is expected to start Ukraine’s Nations League game with Georgia tonight.

Yet he has started only one Premier League game for Chelsea since the back end of August and is slowly but surely sliding down the ladder of importance under Maresca.

It happens to most players at some point.

Only Mudryk, 23, was a symbol of the new Chelsea — an expensive showpiece signing snared after a protracted chase at the behest of Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali, when they were feeling their way in the transfer market.

The cynical view is that the main attraction was purely that Arsenal wanted Mudryk too.

Thus starry-eyed Chelsea swooped simply to beat a rival, because that’s how they perceived business should be done.

Whatever the truth, it cost an upfront £62million, plus add-ons.

A new manager ditching a chairman’s marquee signing so unceremoniously takes balls.

But now Mudryk can’t get anywhere near the first team for ­Premier League games.

Ironically, he has played more minutes under Maresca than any other Chelsea boss . . . just not in the games that matter.

Instead it has been the Conference League and a starring role against Barrow in the Carabao Cup.

For a new manager to ditch a chairman’s marquee signing so unceremoniously takes balls.

Not only that, he brought in Jadon Sancho to play in Mudryk’s position.

A one-two combo Sugar Ray Robinson would have been proud of.
No subtle psychology either. Mudryk’s out and my man’s in — so Behdad and Boehly must suck it up.

And they seem to be.

Maresca has since gone on to surgically dissect his entire squad — one for the Premier League and one for everything else.

It’s up to those in the cup squad to impress their way on to Maresca’s A-list and for those in it to do enough to stay there. Simple and effective.

Common sense at Chelsea? It will never catch on.

It’s a win-win

WE have finally reached a point in football where both sides claim to have won.

The hubris-driven reactions of Manchester City and the Premier League to their latest courtroom battle over dodgy dealings added to the confusion for many.

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Yet it may well have inadvertently opened up a whole new approach to the beautiful game in  a world where winning means big-time wonga.

Imagine a sport where nobody loses? Where the result doesn’t matter because you can simply say ‘I won’ and everybody else is so bloody confused that they can’t be a***d to argue.

Sounds ludicrous. But a few years ago we’d have said that about VAR, a Champions League where you don’t have to be a champion to play in it, the 39th game, kick-offs at 8pm on a Saturday, £100 a ticket, cup competitions loaded to favour the big teams, players on £500k a week and half- and-half scarves.

Oh, and £25 for a bobble hat in some club shops, which I saw a few weeks back. Still only one winner there.

Judges out in a blazer glory

WIMBLEDON dole office will be busier than usual in July when queues of redundant line judges start signing on.

The All England Club’s switch over to automated, eagle-eyed, infallible technology to spot whether a ball is in or out means it’s curtains for around 300 of them.

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Wimbledon say they are behind the times when it comes to moving over to AI instead of actual humans to make the big calls and stress they will do their best to find the officials alternative employment.

Even so, look out next summer for a Centre Court full of second-hand £900 Ralph Lauren official Wimbo blazers being offered for sale on Vinted.

Pore decision

I’M all for revolting fans — but the daftest demo  must go to the Spanish couple who got themselves in bother in Singapore for having a pop at Valencia owner Peter Lim by holding up a ‘Lim Go Home’ banner outside his house. Er . . .

   No-one else up to scratch

IT’S farewell to Rafa Nadal, the man who made wedgie-wiggling a sport in its own right.

The Spaniard retires next month after 22 Slam wins.

When we’re no longer able to focus on his bizarre habit of sticking his fingers into his backside and his nose-pulling and ear-scratching routine, we’ll just have to watch the tennis. Grim.

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Give credit where credit is due. Former UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya paid his respect to both Alex Pereira and Khalil Rountree following their recent clash.

This past Saturday, Pereira (12-2 MMA, 9-1 UFC) and Rountree (13-6 MMA, 9-6 UFC) gave fans one of the best championship fights of the year, going toe to toe for almost 20 minutes in the main event of UFC 307 in Salt Lake City.

Although the result was maybe expected, many were taken away by Rountree’s toughness and competitiveness, while also admiring Pereira’s comeback ability and skill. Adesanya was one of them.

“He lasted longer than I thought he would,” Adesanya said on his YouTube channel. “At least someone else took him to the fourth round. It shows how good Khalil is. Again he’s (Pereira) got some hard fights in front of him, but he is that guy right now, he’s on.

“Honestly, I called it, but I thought it was going to be earlier. Shout out to Khalil because fighting with a broken nose and the intelligence not to blow his nose in the fight, respect. His stock goes up after this. What a moment.”

With the victory, Pereira is now on a five-fight winning streak since moving up to 205 pounds and has three title defenses. He won the light heavyweight title by stopping former champ Jiri Prochazka at UFC 295 last November, and went on to pick up his first title defense in April at UFC 300 by finishing Jamahal Hill. “Poatan” then returned on short notice at UFC 303 in June, where he defeated Prochazka in a rematch.

On the other hand, Rountree saw his five-fight winning streak come to an end. This was his first UFC title opportunity in the eight years he’s been in the promotion.

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 307.

“It’s difficult in international games – you don’t have a lot of time to implement your style of play, and I know exactly the way he wants to play. We’ve seen some clips of the way he wants to play and tomorrow it’s about us, how we can cancel that out.

“I know he wants to play good football as we did at Burnley, especially that first season. But it’s always difficult when you only have four or five training sessions, so it’s definitely going to take time for him to implement his style on the team.”

The start of Bellamy’s tenure has rejuvenated Wales, with a bold new style of play apparent during last month’s opening goalless draw with Turkey, followed by a 2-1 win in Montenegro.

Wales are clearly more aggressive off the ball than they were under Bellamy’s predecessor Rob Page, while they are also more creative and dynamic in possession.

“We have had discussions about it but he’s only two games in and the way he wants to play perfect football is not there,” Gudmundsson added.

“So we have to be wary at what comes to us. The pitch could be trouble as well, as it was in Montenegro. The way he wants to play was not possible there. Against Turkey, you saw more of the way he wants to play.

“It will be interesting. We have looked at the way they want to play and we’ll definitely do everything to cancel that out and implement our style on the game as we are playing at home.”

Iceland started their Nations League campaign with a 2-0 win at home to Montenegro before losing 3-1 in Turkey.

Fiorentina forward Albert Gudmundsson was acquitted of sexual assault charges in Reykjavik on Thursday and is now eligible to play for the national team.

He has not played for Iceland since scoring in their Euro 2024 play-off final defeat by Ukraine in March.

Iceland boss Age Hareide said he did not know if it was possible for the 27-year-old to line up against Wales, with Turkey’s visit to Reykjavik on Monday a more realistic date for his potential return.

“We have to call Fiorentina and ask for that,” said Hareide. “We are late anyway, so it could be impossible. We don’t know. We will have to wait and see.”

Judd Trump pinched a tight deciding frame as he came from behind to beat fellow Englishman Chris Wakelin and reach the semi-finals of the Wuhan Open.

Wakelin, who beat Chinese home favourite Ding Junhui in the previous round, continued his impressive form to establish a 2-0 lead, helped by a break of 97 in the first frame.

Trump edged the third but Wakelin closed out the fourth to hold a 3-1 lead, before the defending champion made 54 and 58 in the next two frames to level.

Wakelin regained the lead in the following frame but Trump clinched victory by taking the next two for a thrilling 5-4 win, snatching the close-fought decider on the colours.

“It was frustrating at times and especially in that last frame, where it looked like he was going to fluke a couple of balls and end up winning,” said Trump.

“In the end, I took my chance and played a really good shot on the brown to knock the pink out.

“You are just relying on your opponent to miss [in those situations]. He did that in the last frame. There was a bit of pressure out there and he took his eye off the brown looking for an angle to get the pink out.”

Earlier, England’s Shaun Murphy fell to a 5-1 defeat against China’s Xiao Guodong.

Carlos Prates has gone from a Dana White’s Contender Series signee to a UFC main eventer after just three fights.

At UFC Fight Night 247 on Nov. 9 at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, Prates (20-6 MMA, 3-0 UFC) will get his first headlining opportunity. The hard-hitting Brazilian welterweight will share the main stage with a mainstay in the rankings, Neil Magny. Two sources confirmed the news with MMA Junkie following a first report from MMA Fighting.

Prates, 31, was signed to the UFC after impressing on DWCS last August with a second-round knockout of Mitch Ramirez. He made his UFC debut in February, and picked up another second-round finish, earning his first Performance of the Night bonus for stopping Trevin Giles.

Four months later, Prates stopped Charles Radtke in the opening round to earn his second POTN award. The bonus machine Prates took another fight two months later, where he earned his third $50,000 check in his first UFC main card slot for stopping Li Jingliang at UFC 305 – a victory that extended his current winning streak to 10.

Prates previously agreed to face Randy Brown at UFC 309, but the fight fell through.

Looking to hault his momentum will be UFC welterweight wins leader Magny (29-12 MMA, 22-11 UFC). “The Haitian Sensation” has traded wins and losses over his last eight appearances as he has struggled to build momentum of his own.

In his most recent outing, Michael Morales stopped the 37-year-old welterweight in the first round at UFC on ESPN 62. Prior to the setback, Magny came through as a sizable underdog against Mike Malott at UFC 297, finishing the fight in a wild third round comeback.

With the addition, the current UFC Fight Night 247 lineup includes:

• Neil Magny vs. Carlos Prates
• Cody Garbrandt vs. Miles Johns
• Luana Pinheiro vs. Gillian Robertson
• Mansur Abdul-Malik vs. Dusko Todorovic
• Melissa Mullins vs. Montserrat Rendon
• Tresean Gore vs. Antonio Trocoli
• Bernardo Sopaj vs. Ricky Turcios
• Denise Gomes vs. Karolina Kowalkiewicz
• Reinier de Ridder vs. Gerald Meerschaert
• Nicolas Dalby vs. Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos
• Da’Mon Blackshear vs. Cody Stamann
• Gaston Bolanos vs. Cortavious Romious

ALTHOUGH this was the night when England’s embarrassment of riches in attack was put on full show, here was a stark reminder that the nation remains unbelievably thin in quality at the back.

Central defenders, full-backs and even the goalkeeper. Right across the board, England have some major issues.

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John Stones captained England for the first time in the absence of Harry Kane and this is not a night he will look back at with any fondness.

Stones was one of three players – along with Trent Alexander-Arnold and Cole Palmer – who could have done better for Greece’s opening goal through Vangelis Pavlidis.

Along with Levi Colwill, he was also lucky that Pavlidis’ strike towards the end was ruled offside as both players were at fault.

Yet right at the end, when Pavlidis struck again for the winner, Stones – along with Rico Lewis – could have done much better.

The options for Lee Carsley – and whoever takes this team forward over the next two years – are not exactly mind-blowing when it comes to strength in depth across the back.

Over the last couple of years, we should have seen this issue coming. But there has been too much focus on what we could do at the other end of the pitch.

This was Stones’ 82nd cap, meaning he has now overtaken former defender Rio Ferdinand in England appearances. He is now joint 17th on the all-time list with Raheem Sterling.

The Yorkshireman is even more important to the England team than Ferdinand ever was purely because the former Manchester United defender had John Terry, Sol Campbell, Ledley King and Jamie Carragher as international colleagues.

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With Harry Maguire axed from the squad before suffering an injury, and Ezri Konsa also forced to withdraw with a knock, Stones played next to Chelsea’s Levi Colwill who did OK.

Yet Stones’ lack of games for Manchester City is a huge worry and this could harm England over the next two seasons.

He enjoyed a decent Euros in Germany even though this followed the most difficult season of his club career when form and injuries limited him to just 12 starts in the Premier League.

And this season, despite playing a part in other competitions for Pep Guardiola, Stones has only started one top-flight match this term.

There were times against the Greeks when Stones found himself exposed as England did their Harlem Globetrotters impression.

It was a mix-up between Stones and Jordan Pickford which presented a chance to Tasos Bakasetas yet Colwill dashed back to deliver a heroic goal-line clearance.

But as for the goals – along with the disallowed ones – Wembley witnessed some Car-crash.

Here was the proof, not that we needed it, that left-back is also a huge problem.

Although happy to play there, Lewis considers himself as a midfielder. Colwill can also play in that spot but he is more comfortable in central defence.

Even at right-back, where we seemed to be spoilt for choice, there are concerns.

Carsley clearly considers Alexander-Arnold as the team’s first-choice right-back even though Gareth Southgate listed him as a midfielder.

Alexander-Arnold, though, was guilty of allowing Pavlidis to brush past him too easily for the opening goal and it was not the only time he was caught out.

Kyle Walker, who did not make the England squad last month, will probably start against Finland but he will be 36 at the next World Cup.

While Pickford has been England’s best keeper by some distance over the years, he was properly dodgy in this Greek humiliation.

Yet the alternatives are Dean Henderson and Nick Pope, along with Aaron Ramsdale. All are decent keepers but neither are going to challenge the Everton keeper.

Now, there is a real chance England might have to go into a Nations League play-off in March as they might not win the group.