“The reason why…” – Maresca forced to defend his tactical decision from recent games | OneFootball

When things are going well, the press are happy to sit and listen to a manager talk about why.

But when things start to wobble a little – as they have in the last few games for Chelsea under new manager Enzo Maresca – the questions tend to get a little more pointed and specific.

Today is a perfect example. When the going is good and smooth, the coach is allowed to do whatever he likes. But after 1 win in 4 games, the press were starting to question Maresca about his use of his full backs.

The recent trend from the Italian coach has been to use Reece James on the right hand side, with Malo Gusto flipped to the left. Although we’ve also seen the reverse of that.

There’s no doubt it creates a slight imbalance in the squad, as Chelsea end up using both their right backs every week, then having to wedge in Axel Disasi out of position on the right for cup games, while only one of our three left backs get used.

Malo Gusto trains at Cobham.

Maresca explains his full back decisions

Asked about this Maresca explained the reasoning:

“The reason why, first of all, is because we think with Malo there, playing as a 10, we think we can create and cause problems for the opponent. For sure, he is doing fantastic.

“I said in the last press conference: Malo is helping us a lot in the process because he is playing as a holding midfielder, he is playing in the pocket, he is playing I think for some moment like a central defender. It is a little bit like Renato [Veiga], playing in different positions but for sure, Malo is doing well and he is going to continue in that way.”

Win this weekend and nobody will be questioning these specific tactical quirks.