Enzo Maresca picks an almost perfect team – but this one bad habit persists | OneFootball

Chelsea’s team for this afternoon’s game against Ipswich is out, and as you’d expect, Enzo Maresca has gone full strength.

The Chelsea manager was able to play a full rotated team in midweek, lining him up nicely for today’s massive Premier League game which offers his side the chance to take another crucial step towards a Champions League place.

There is just one bone to pick in his selection, in truth – the decision to once again put Reece James on the bench. Maresca has made it clear that he doesn’t want to use the injury prone full back twice in one week, so it was clear that this was happening from the moment James was in the team to face Legia Warsaw on Thursday night.

Clearly the desire to rest Moises Caicedo and Enzo Fernandez meant James had to put his auxiliary midfielder hat on. Could Maresca not just have used Mathis Amougou or one of our many talented academy players and had James ready for today?

Changing defence remains a bad habit for Enzo Maresca

Wesley Fofana, Tosin Adarabioyo, Benoit Badiashile, Trevoh Chalobah, Levi Colwill and Axel Disasi in a montage of Chelsea defence and defenders.

But this is about more than just James. Having him on the bench means Trevoh Chalobah shifts to right back, with Tosin Adarabioyo in the middle alongside Levi Colwill. This means once again a promising central defensive partnership is broken up. We wrote after a really solid showing against Spurs that we hoped we could now settle into a routine for the rest of the season with Colwill and Chalobah as our league defenders and Tosin and Badiashile as our cup defenders. Maresca has gone totally the other way – the Chalobah Colwill duo hasn’t been used since.

There has been a lot of disruption in the back line all season thanks to injury, but Maresca can’t deny that his own chopping and changing in that part of the pitch has not helped matters.