After a preseason which didn’t go well, Enzo Maresca has seen everything go pretty swimmingly as Chelsea boss ever since.
Results have been good and his team are far ahead of where they were expected to be. They steamrollered the Conference League group stage with their B team, keeping their A team fresh in the league. He picked a team and didn’t fiddle with it, he dealt with the potential squad issues well.
It was hard to find a flaw, but today the Chelsea Chronicle have accused him of making “his first big mistake” as manager when we took on Fulham at Stamford Bridge on Boxing Day. After leading the game into the last 10 minutes, a tired Chelsea conceded twice.
The Chronicle claim that his decision to use just one sub in the game was criminal, considering the context and the result. We’re inclined to agree – in fact we wrote about it on the night.
Maresca defends his decision by saying he didn’t want change for change’s sake
Asked how on earth he could leave a clearly exhausted team gradually collapse from a winning position to a defeat, Maresca tried to explain that he didn’t want to make change for change’s sake:
“I try to make changes […] when I see the ones who are playing that are not doing enough. But even tonight even if you have to make a change just because you want to change, but I think tonight the ones who were playing they were doing very good.”
We just totally disagree. We’re not Joao Felix fans here at all, but we would take him over an exhausted Cole Palmer for the last 20 minutes, and the same can be said for a number of other potential changes in the team.
The mistake was playing lampard football, instead of Murinhio or Conte football. As in, even when one up to keep pushing full steam. Instead of pulling back to the half way and employing a lower block. thus Chelsea are pulling them out and playing the the counter attacking football. and are more solid defensively.
Maresca and Colwill cost chelsea the game against Fulham,maresca did not have a clue what to do to stop fulham over running a knackered Chelsea, Colwill gets away with murder very average and lazy went missing on both fulham goals, if liverpool offer 50m + bite there hands off remember hudson adoi 45m and we accept 4 m from forest