Chelsea are playing in the Carabao Cup tonight, a first chance of the season for Enzo Maresca to rest some players and rotate his tired team.He’s warned us repeatedly to not expect a really weakened...
Chelsea are playing in the Carabao Cup tonight, a first chance of the season for Enzo Maresca to rest some players and rotate his tired team.
He’s warned us repeatedly to not expect a really weakened side though. He’s terrified of a banana skin result against a very motivated League 1 team.
Maresca wary of using Acheampong in defence
Enzo Maresca speaking in a press conference.
Our predicted XI has him making a lot of changes, but we’ll probably be disappointed. At the back, we said he would use Tosin Adarabioyo (who did play most of Saturday’s game, but is less likely to be needed this weekend) and Josh Acheampong. But we’ve got a sinking feeling that Acheampong will be snubbed again.
“I would love to rest both [Trevoh Chalobah and Tosin] because they deserve to rest.
“The problem is that we also have Wes Fofana playing after a long time. So if we rest Tosin, if we rest Trev, and if we rest Wes, probably I need to play some part of the game.
“We don’t have defenders so some of them need to play.”
It’s really not that complicated, Enzo. You’ve used Acheampong before and been impressed. Why are you scared to use one of the country’s top defenders against Lincoln City? He wouldn’t be playing quite in his preferred position, but what’s the problem? He’s good enough.
We’re not sure what else a young player can do to prove themselves in the manager’s eyes. Just play Acheampong and Tosin tonight then Wesley Fofana and Trevoh Chalobah against Brighton, there doesn’t seem to be too much complexity to us.
One position tonight certain for Maresca
One thing we do know is that Filip Jorgensen will be in goal, having made an unexpected 85 minute appearance after Robert Sanchez’s red card on Saturday.
“Filip is going to help us in the moment,” Maresca said.
“[I told Jorgensen] that he was going to play domestic cup games, he was going to play Premier League games and he was going to play Champions League games. It was a very easy conversation.”
Category: General Sports
