£45m star has sat on bench for 11 games running because of this obvious truth about Maresca | OneFootball

We can now confirm – Enzo Maresca’s resistance to use his bench has officially reached talking point status.

Liam Twomey wrote a piece for the Athletic a week ago which suggested that the coach’s decreasing use of substitutes as the tough has got going indicates that he doesn’t fully trust his squad.

After two more games where we’ve seen more of the same, Kieran Gill of the Daily Mail has picked up the thread, claiming that “Enzo Maresca’s refusal to utilise his subs’ bench shows he doesn’t fully trust his Chelsea squad just yet.”

He backs it up with some interesting data and examples. Just look at Joao Felix, who (for all his flaws) is a creative attacker whose best use is probably a last throw of the dice for a team looking to make something happen. But he’s been an unused sub in Chelsea’s last NINE Premier League games.

Given that covers a stretch where we’ve both won and lost games, have played good teams and bad teams, through all sorts of game states, that’s a pretty astonishing stat. The truth is pretty obvious: Maresca just doesn’t fancy the Portuguese to play against anyone other than Conference League cannon fodder.

Maresca’s sub aversion is stark in stats

Chelsea signed Joao Felix from Atletico Madrid. (Photo by Ryan Hiscott/Getty Images)

Gill lines up a few stats which are very telling – only 3 teams have used fewer subs than Chelsea in the Premier League this season. Only three clubs wait longer to make subs than Chelsea, whose first change comes in the 63rd minute, on average.

As the writer says, Maresca can dispute the criticism of the size of his squad, but he can’t deny he has exceptional quality in that squad. Which other teams in the league are leaving the likes of Felix and Christopher Nkunku on the bench in games where they need a goal?