Jamie Carragher makes Enzo Maresca and Pep Guardiola comment in huge praise for Chelsea boss

Former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher has hailed Chelseahead coachEnzo Marescaas "top level" and named him in the same bracket as Pep Guardiola, Mikel Arteta and Arne Slot.

Carragher was analysing Chelsea's well-deserved 1-0 win at Tottenhamon Saturday and assessed how the Blues managed to build the ball up from the back and transition it into an attack.

After slamming Tottenham's "passive" and defensive-minded approach, Carragher then decided to highlight how well Maresca has coached Chelsea to be able to dominate matches when in possession.

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"I'll tell you a manager who can coach this, and that is Enzo Maresca. We've seen this a lot from Chelsea since he came in, it's nothing new," Carragher said Sky Sports.

"What you see in terms of rotations is: you've got a central midfield player in Reece James, now part of a back three in the middle there, splitting the centre backs.

"You've got your right back [Malo Gusto] - at times you see it with the left back, Cucurella. He's taking up almost right-sided attacking midfield positions. And you've got [Enzo] Fernandez, who spent a lot of time in the game in this [attacking] role, at times pulling wide, but he was also pulling [Joao] Palhinha onto the last line.

"Now what happens: the ball comes in to Joao Pedro, and what you've got now is, that's your centre forward [deep], and your right back is your highest player on the attacking line.

"So when you talk about rotations, this is what the managers at the really top level can do. Pep Guardiola, Arne Slot, Mikel Arteta, Enzo Maresca. They can coach the rotations and the movements."

Although Chelsea won by just one goal, the scoreline flattered Tottenham. Indeed, the Blues created a staggering expected goals (xG) of 3.69, compared to Spurs' 0.11.

Maresca's side had more possession, more shots, more shots on target and more big chances than their opponents. It was a complete domination from start to finish.

Delivering his assessment post-match, Maresca said: "I'm happy with the one-nil and with the three points, especially because we kept the clean sheet that I think it’s something that we need for the future. We knew that we are a team that, at the end, we are going to score goals, but we need to do better defensively.

"The performance was very good, on the ball and off the ball. For sure, the way we tried to press was very important, but I also think that our game against Liverpool off the ball was top game - was very good.

"And you need that. You need that if you want to be close to the top - you need to be defensively solid. As I said, we know that almost always we score goals, but we need also to try to concede less goals."