Enzo Maresca has hinted that Chelsea’s sluggish performance in their Champions League draw with Qarabag may be due to lingering fatigue from the Club World Cup campaign. The result marked the first time the Azerbaijani side avoided defeat against an English team in their history.
Statistics show that Maresca has made a total of 85 changes to his starting line-ups this season, averaging around six per game — the highest among Premier League managers.
Speaking after the match, Maresca defended his decision to rotate heavily — seven changes in total — for the trip to Baku. He relied on three halftime substitutions to help his team recover from a 2-1 deficit and avoid defeat.
“The intention was to rest Enzo (Fernandez), to rest Moises (Caicedo), to rest Malo (Gusto), to rest more players, because they are not able to play every three days,” Maresca told Daily Mail. “They need recovery from last season.
“The Club World Cup affects a lot. We try to rotate. When you win, no one mentions all that. When we don’t win, everyone is focused on that, and now I think it’s important to recover energy for Saturday and go again.”
Moises Caicedo, however, was forced into action early after Romeo Lavia suffered an injury just eight minutes into the game, while Fernandez came on at halftime with Chelsea trailing.
Commenting on Lavia’s setback, Maresca said: “It’s a shame for him. He is not able to be fit for a long, long period. We will see now as it’s too early to understand what kind of injury. Hopefully it’s not a big injury.”
Reflecting on the match, he added: “The big difference today for me was inside the box. The goal we conceded, they are silly goals for me. In their box, for the amount of times that we arrived, we have not been clinical enough. So this is the big difference for me.”