Enzo Maresca criticised one of his Chelsea players who “made a right hash of it” in defeat to Manchester United on Saturday.
The Blues lost 2-1 at Old Trafford as first-half goals from Bruno Fernandes and Casemiro were enough to ease the pressure on Ruben Amorim.
That pressure has now been transferred to Enzo Maresca, who’s been slammed for his “really negative” substitutions after Robert Sanchez’s early red card.
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The Chelsea goalkeeper dashed out of his area to confront Bryan Mbeumo, who had latched onto a Benjamin Sesko flick on, and clattered into the winger, leaving the referee no option but to give him his marching orders.
Maresca said after the game that he would have preferred Sanchez let Mbeumo score.
He said: “It was better to let Mbeumo score than getting the red card.
“We still had 95 minutes to play… Robert Sánchez is aware of that. It’s difficult… but if you ask me, I prefer to be one goal down after five minutes than one player down.”
Analysing the incident, Sky Sports’ Jamie Redknapp highlighted the key “mistake” Sanchez made in a “really bad piece of goalkeeping”.
“This is where it all goes wrong for the goalkeeper,” the pundit explained, with the image frozen at the moment Sesko flicked the long ball on.
“Robert Sanchez – where he’s stood now is where the impact is made. But the mistake he makes is indecisiveness. As that ball then gets flicked on he decides to go backwards which is the mistake, because if he stays where he is, he will probably come and clear it. He can be the first there. But he goes back and then too late, he decides to come out. And he makes a right hash of it… It’s a really bad piece of goalkeeping. No doubt it’s a red card.”
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Sanchez’s red card saw Maresca take off Estevao for goalkeeper Filip Jorgensen and swap out Pedro Neto for Tosin Adarabioyo, before Cole Palmer’s niggle forced him off for Andrey Santos.
Alejandro Garnacho was poised to enter the fray late on, but wasn’t given the opportunity to face his former club amid boos from the Old Trafford crowd.
Explaining his decisions, Maresca said: “The reason why we changed Pedro and Estevao 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 10, I think we need to defend with the width, so we decided to go with the back-five, this is the reason why.
“And then the other one, Garna, he was ready to go on, but then Wes asked for the change, because he was tired after a long time, so we changed and we decided to go for Tyrique, and the idea was to give Garnacho minutes.”
