Chelsea stars face brutal diet and fitness regime under Enzo Maresca with coach who BANNED salt, pepper and fried eggs

CHELSEA stars could be set for five years of bland food after the arrival of new boss Enzo Maresca.

The Blues announced yesterday that Maresca has penned a five-year deal at Stamford Bridge, replacing Mauricio Pochettino in the dugout.

Getty

Enzo Maresca has signed on as the new Chelsea manager[/caption]

Maresca, a disciple of Pep Guardiola, is expected to bring a possession based philosophy to west London after implementing an attractive style of play at Leicester last season.

But alongside his new tactics, Maresca is bringing his coaching staff too.

That includes fitness coach Marcos Alvarez, who was with Maresca at the King Power last season as the Foxes gained promotion to the Premier League.

Alvarez is known to be red hot on maintaining players’ fitness levels and takes some crazy measures when it comes to monitoring their diets.

As well as his time with Leicester last season, Alvarez has also implemented his brutal diet and fitness regimes at Sevilla, Tottenham and Parma in the past.

According to the Telegraph, Alvarez banned fruit juice, cake, sauce, salt and pepper while working for Spurs under manager Juande Ramos in 2007.

It’s also said that his strict dietary rules saw fried eggs stripped from the breakfast menu at Leicester last season.

Alvarez is also understood to be obsessive about players’ fat ratios and during his time in north London made the Spurs team shed a combined 100kg.

BEST FREE BET SIGN UP OFFERS FOR UK BOOKMAKERS

Getty

Chelsea players can expect their pre-match meals to be changed, their training ground menu to be ripped up and their body mass to be examined with regular weigh-ins.

Blues stars will have to obey the rules if they want to meet the high standards set by their new boss and his fitness coach – something the Spurs squad of 2007/08 failed to do.

Former Lilywhites pair Jamie O’Hara and Darren Bent previously told TalkSPORT how hard the diet was to maintain and explained that some players even took measures to break the rules by secretly eating McDonalds.

O’hara said: “When Juande Ramos came in, he banned ketchup and any sauce. He was big on it. It was dry pasta, chicken and that was for the whole time he was there.

“We went on a pre-season trip and that was tough when there’s no sauce to anything. You’re just eating dry chicken and pasta.

“I remember the security guy, Alan Dixon who is still there now, used to sneak the boys out and get McDonald’s.”

While Bent recalled: “There was one meat option, one fish, and maybe plain rice and vegetables – that was it.

“There was no salt, no pepper… no flavour! There was no crumble, either.

“There was also dry pasta — a pasta option with no sauce. You try and eat pasta with no sauce. Pasta, no sauce, no salt or pepper, not even a tomato!

“Dry pasta, dry chicken, plain vegetables… and no crumble. People tried, people said to him: ‘Look, Juande, people are struggling…’

“Even our captain, Ledley King, was like ‘Listen gaffer, we’re struggling here, what’s up with this food?’.

“Honestly, it was tough. The food was really tough to eat. It sounds really silly, but honestly it was really tough!”.

Maresca has brought six new coaches to Chelsea with him including Alvarez.

The other five that have joined him at Stamford Bridge are Roberto Vitiello, Danny Walker, Michele de Bernadin, Javier Molina Caballero and former Blues goalkeeper Willy Caballero.

Getty

Getty