Maresca picks team with an obvious weakness which shows he doesn’t trust 4 cap international | OneFootball

Enzo Maresca has a tricky situation in midfield right now as Chelsea prepare to take on Everton.

Moises Caicedo is suspended, Dario Essugo and Romeo Lavia are injured. Once again, the manager has plumped for Reece James in midfield alongside Enzo Fernandez, with the captain in the mix to add some physicality to a side which otherwise lacks it.

We get that, and we’ve seen James do really well in midfield. But an Enzo and James duo is going to be so open defensively, given that Cole Palmer is ahead of them. The other natural central midfielder in the squad, Andrey Santos, sits on the bench again.

Maresca shows lack of trust in promising midfielder

Enzo Maresca arrives at Stamford Bridge. (Photo by Steve Bardens/Getty Images)

It’s puzzling. Maresca really seems to not trust Santos at all, which is puzzling. He’s not been amazing when he’s played but he’s had some good games, and he’s never going to improve without the trust of his manager.

Certainly fans seem more keen on seeing Santos play more than Maresca does – we’re not quite sure why the former Leicester coach doesn’t fancy him, even as part of a three. James could go to right back and invert, or Palmer could move to the right wing with Enzo replacing him centrally and James playing alongside Santos in the middle.

That would give us a lot more solidity in there. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out.

In other news…

Estevao Willian has also been left out of the team today which is frustrating some fans – we took a look at why it might be in our piece here.

You can see our full team from the game in the post here, where we look at Maresca’s decisions through the whole team.