The England Under-18 international has made a bright start to the new campaign and claimed two goals to round off an impressive night’s work to help our Under-21s record an excellent 4-0 EFL Trophy win at Scunthorpe United on Tuesday night.
It was just the latest in a series of impressive performances by Maresca’s squad with the former Italian striker having taken charge of the EDS squad at the end of August.
And though he has only been in post for just over a month, from Knight’s perspective he says that Maresca’s approach and ideas are already helping bring the best out of the squad both individually and collectively
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“We have changed a couple of things since Enzo has come in and I think everyone is just enjoying football. You are always happy when you are playing so you are going to play your best football,” Knight declared.
“It’s just a fresh start. A new coach, a new bunch of lads and we all get on really well.
“In the training that we do, we have been doing different build up patterns as we have been building up a little bit differently.
“Now it is like, “We are going to do this against this team because it is going to work and against another team that won’t work so we are going to have to change.
“I think being able to adapt like proper football because in the Premier League, or wherever we play, that is what happens. I think it is more real now.
“It has only been four games, we haven’t won all of them, but we have won two, drew one and lost one, and we should have won all of them really. So, we can see it is there.”
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Tuesday’s win at the Sands Arena Stadium not only cemented City’s place at the top of Group E but also ensure we reached the EFL Trophy knockout stages for the third season in succession.
It was also a small measure of revenge following a 3-1 loss at the hands of the Iron in last season’s EFL Trophy last-16 knockout round.
And Knight admitted the format of playing experienced league opposition sides on their own grounds was a challenge that brought the best out of the City youngsters.
“I think it was a really good game. We always seem to do well in this competition,” Knight added.
“We were just saying that in the league we sometimes don’t get what we deserve because we underestimate teams because we know how good we can be.
“In these games, the opposition might underestimate us, so we are obviously up for the challenge and we always just seem to play really well.
“Last year (here at Scunthorpe) wasn’t the best! In this competition, it was the only blip we have had in the last three years I have been playing in it.”
