Maresca forced to defend his strange half time decisions after Chelsea collapse | OneFootball

Chelsea have just been beaten 2-1 by Atlanta in Bergamo, putting their hopes of finishing in the Champions League top 8 in real danger with 2 games to play.

The Blues even took the lead, but a feeble second half performance allowed the Italian team back into the game, and they went on to win it late on.

Maresca asked to explain half time subs

Chelsea applaud fans at full time. (Photo by Carl Recine/Getty Images)

Speaking after the game, Maresca was asked about his half time changes, which seemed to turn the game against him. He took off his starting central defender Trevoh Chalobah and his starting central midfielder Enzo Fernandez. It was baffling, but the coach tried to explain his logic:

“No, both changes because Trev and Enzo, they are both playing every minute in every game, so both, they were not 100%. Also, Trev’s decision is because he was on a yellow card, so to avoid a little bit of that. So this is the reason why we changed that.”

We’ve defended the manager pretty solidly against a lot of the criticism he’s had for rotation, but this really was a wild move. To change the core of your team at half time is something you can do in a league cup game when you’re battering a team a couple of divisions below.

Rotating because of load management in the middle of a crucial Champions League game just seems risky – and it didn’t pay off. Chalobah’s replacement Wesley Fofana got lost under the ball for the equaliser not long after coming on, and without Enzo Chelsea lacked goal threat centrally.

In other news…

Alejandro Garnacho had some pretty innocent pre-match comments which were taken the wrong way by some Atalanta players – including the match-winner, unfortunately.

Chelsea have signed up another really impressive teenage talent – Mohamed Zongo is set to head to Strasbourg to get his BlueCo career going.