Chelsea “doomed” if one of two things happen thanks to Maresca’s lack of faith | OneFootball

Enzo Maresca’s rotation policy has been the subject of a lot of criticism this season, and last night his sub decisions were also questioned.

On the London is Blue podcast they discussed both of them. Maresca is in a tricky spot where some players need to rest, but he’s getting criticised for bad results when he doesn’t play his best team.

“We see that Enzo Fernandez is clearly looking for an opportunity to rest,” presenter Dan Dormer said in today’s review of the game.

“I mean he has played some of the most football for this side at this time across all competitions. Heading into this game, he was at 1700 minutes and Marc Cucurella was almost at 1700 minutes. Both of them are almost a full game ahead of Robert Sanchez in terms of minutes played.”

When your goalkeeper has had more chances to rest than your central midfielder or your left back, you know you’re in trouble.

Chelsea “doomed” if they lose either of two key players

Marc Cucurella in action against Barcelona. (Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

A guest on the show noted that the reason those two were being run into the ground was that the manager doesn’t fancy any of the alternatives:

“If we lose Cucurella or Enzo we’re basically doomed, because it doesn’t feel like Maresca trusts anyone to play in those roles.”

He certainly doesn’t seem to trust Andrey Santos, the natural replacement for Fernandez in the team. The Brazilian not only didn’t start last night, he didn’t even come on as a sub then Enzo went off.

You can see their discussion in the clip embedded here:

In other news…

Youtuber Matisse Armani unloaded on the manager for his decisions in the second half, turning a lead in a winnable game into a defeat with a whole messy confusion of system changes and subs in the second period.

Maresca has taken a lot of flak for his decisions in the game, as his fiddling around with formations and systems left Chelsea without much goal threat in the second half.