Maresca’s confusing answer over why he didn’t use Garnacho against Man U | OneFootball

Enzo Maresca is taking his post match press conference at Old Trafford after his Chelsea team were beaten 2-1 by Manchester United.

Maresca’s subs cause frustration

Enzo Maresca in the rain at Old Trafford. (Photo by Jan Kruger/Getty Images)

The coach was caught out when Robert Sanchez got a crazy red card. But his response left fans scratching their heads.

As well as bringing on a goalkeeper, the Italian coach also decided to bring on a defender. Those two additions meant taking off both his wingers. Then soon after Cole Palmer went off injured too. At that point, Maresca added a defensive midfielder.

At half time, no attacking additions were made. Even in the second half, £40m attacking signing Alejandro Garnacho didn’t see the pitch against his old team.

Maresca explained his decisions thus:

“The reason why we changed Pedro [Neto] and Estevao [Willian] was because they attack with the five players always, and we defend with the four, and we can defend with the four when we are 11 vs 11, but 11 against them, I think we need to defend on the width, so we decided to go with the back five, this is the reason why,” was the tactical explanation for the shift.

“And then the other one, Garnacho, he was ready to go on, but then Wes [Fofana] asked for the change, because he was tired after a long time, so we changed and we decided to go for Malo Gusto, the idea [had been] to give Garnacho minutes.”

Maresca’s confused logic doesn’t add up

It doesn’t really add up. Why would the fact that it was Fofana who wanted to come off change which winger came on? He still put George on when he could have used Garnacho. The winger warmed up but never appeared. We don’t get it at all.