Chelsea manager, Enzo Maresca has explained his weird substitutions of Pedro Neto and Estevao Willian during the first half of the match against Manchester United, Softfootball reports.
The former Leicester City manager was forced to make substitution after Robert Sanchez was shown a straight red card for blocking goal bound Bryan Mbeumo as they lost the match 2-1 at Old Trafford.
In a post-match interview shared by Chelsea’s official media, Maresca was asked about the substitutions and he replied:
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.
Maresca also gave his general views on the match. He said:
After three or four minutes, it was rough for the way the red card became difficult not only for Chelsea, it [would] become difficult for any club.
For sure we could have started the game better, then the [Casemiro] red card gave us the chance to come back in the game. We had two-three moments inside the box [in the second-half], but all the game changed after the red card, all the planning and everything, it doesn’t exist anymore.
The defeat against Manchester United was the second one suffered by Chelsea this week, following the Blues 3-1 loss against Bayern Munich in midweek.
Chelsea are now sixth with eight points in the premier league table and will play Lincoln City in the Carabao Cup on Tuesday.
