“The reason why…” – Maresca defends policy some fans and pundits hate | OneFootball

The “R Word” is dominating headlines at Chelsea right now – rotation was blamed for our bad result against Leeds in midweek, and today in his press conference Enzo Maresca had to defend his decision to switch things up at Elland Road.

Maresca defends his rotation policy

Pedro Neto celebrates his goal against Leeds. (Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

“Most of the rotation we do is because the other [player] they cannot play. So we have players that they are, in this moment, not able to play every three days,” Maresca said, referring in this case to Reece James and Wesley Fofana.

“The reason why most of the rotation we have done in the past is for this… When you pick 11 players and you win, everything is fine. When you pick 11 players and you don’t win, there is always a reason why, for sure. Again, I think we playing with 10 players for one hour and then after three days go to Leeds is not the best situation for us. But in the future, in case it happens, we need to be better, we need to do many things better.”

We do have sympathy with Maresca here. James and Fofana can’t play 3 games in a week and Moises Caicedo was suspended. In reality, the only “rotation” he made was resting Pedro Neto, and even he has the much fancied Estevao Willian as an alternative.

Maresca is stuck between a rock and a hard place on this one – the team is so much better with James and Fofana in it, but if he plays them every game he will likely lose them injured for the long term.

In other news…

Maresca was also asked about the aftermath of Tuesday’s game against Leeds – and his answer didn’t give much confidence that things will have changed since then.

Gary Neville was working as co-commentator in Tuesday’s Chelsea defeat to Leeds, and he pointed out some of the things he’d seen early which he had hated from the Blues.