Maresca’s words and actions on young player simply don’t match up | OneFootball

Before the game against Leeds on Wednesday, Chelsea were doing really well, and there were few complaints from fans about Enzo Maresca, despite that relationship having been a bit rocky at times since he arrived 18 months ago.

There was one bone most fans had to pick with the coach, however: Josh Acheampong. The youngster has done so well when given a chance, but Maresca time after time picks more experience players.

Chelsea fans puzzled over Maresca treatment of Acheampong

Josh Acheampong scores his first Chelsea goal. (Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images)

In the last 7 games he’s played just 8 minutes. What makes it even more frustrating for fans (and presumably for Josh) is that he was playing really well before that, getting starts and looking great against Nottingham Forest and Sunderland in the Premier League.

Wednesday night was a perfect chance for him to start in a rotated team, but Maresca instead moved Trevoh Chalobah to the right, with predictably bad consequences.

Even more bizarrely, the Chelsea coach then said after the game that he had made a mistake and should have gone with the youngster:

“One of the regrets I have after the [Leeds] game is that I didn’t play Josh,” Maresca said.

“The reason we went with Trevoh [Chalobah], Benoît [Badiashile] and Tosin [Adarabioyo] was because we anticipated long balls to their strikers, but even then, we lost most of them.”

Whenever he speaks about Josh he speaks so positively. Why can’t he follow up those words with actions?

In other news…

Chelsea’s team for today’s game had some interesting changes to it, with injured players returning…

Liam Delap is the player who could move out of the team for Cole Palmer, and that’s a move a lot of fans would support. His manager made a defence of him in the press conference yesterday, saying he was sure he would start scoring soon.