Maresca’s explanation for why he didn’t bring on attacking subs in game Chelsea needed to win | OneFootball

A win for Chelsea last night would have been absolutely huge in terms of making it into the Champions League top 8 places, a standing which would qualify them automatically for the knockout rounds.

So it was no wonder that fans were expecting the Blues to go all out for the win when the opposition levelled the scores last night.

Maresca tries to explain strange subs in second half

Chelsea’s subs against Atalanta.

Instead, manager Enzo Maresca ended up bringing on defender Tosin for defender Wesley Fofana, because the latter had an eye injury.

As the coach explained post game, that then killed the chances of a more attacking player like Estevao Willian seeing the pitch and potentially winning the game:

“The idea, the change of Tosin, is because Wes, we needed to change him, so that was a bit enforced,” the coach explained.

“With one more change, probably there was more chance for Estevao to go inside or for Andrey [Santos] to go inside. But then with that change, it changed a little bit the plan of the game.”

The breakdown of the subs were – Trevoh Chalobah off at half time for Fofana. Alejandro Garnacho and Malo Gusto on for Pedro Neto and Enzo Fernandez ten minutes after Atalanta levelled. Then Tosin on for the injured Fofana after 76 minutes.

That’s four changes – so Maresca still had more than 15 minutes left where he could have introduced Estevao, or even striker Marc Guiu. Why not roll the dice? He played it safe, conceded anyway, and walks away with no points.

In other news…

Chelsea’s half time changes caused a bit of a stir – and the coach was asked to explain why he made them in the press conference after the game.

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