Chelsea: Why Enzo Maresca changed his mind as Alejandro Garnacho denied Manchester United return | OneFootball

Enzo Maresca says he planned to give the winger some minutes against his former club, but was forced to change his mind

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Garnacho was back in Manchester for the first time since he left United this summer to join Chelsea.

The winger, however, was an unused substitute as Chelsea fell to a 2-1 defeat at the hands of his old club.

Garnacho came in for plenty of stick from the home fans as he warmed up in front of the Stretford End.

Garnacho was overlooked for Tyrique George, with Malo Gusto also coming on as Maresca made his final substitutions of the game.

Long before that, the Chelsea boss had made history by making three substitutes in the first 21 minutes.

No Premier League team had done that before, with Maresca taking off both of his wingers in Estevao and Pedro Neto after Robert Sanchez was sent off inside five minutes.

“The reason why we changed Pedro and Estevao was because they attack with the five players always,” said Maresca.

“And we defend with the four, and we can defend with the four when we are 11 vs 11, but 11 against 10, I think we need to defend with the width, so we decided to go with the back-five, this is the reason why.

“And then the other one, Garna, he was ready to go on, but then Wes asked for the change, because he was tired after a long time, so we changed and we decided to go for Tyrique, and the idea was to give Garnacho minutes.”