Enzo Maresca admits he ‘regrets’ not starting one Chelsea star against Leeds United – potentially a touch at his line-up for the trip to Bournemouth on Saturday.
Following a formidable run of games, including a 3-0 win over Barcelona and a 1-1 draw with Premier League leaders Arsenal, many had the Blues down as real title contenders.
But that momentum disappeared on Wednesday night as they were well-beaten 3-1 at Elland Road by a side battling against relegation.
Maresca was strongly criticised after the match for overly-rotating his defence, with Wesley Fofana and Reece James dropped and Trevoh Chalobah moved to right-back.
Tosin Adarabioyo and Benoit Badiashile formed the centre-back partnership however the latter was hauled off at half-time, just for his alternative Malo Gusto and Tosin to gift Leeds their third goal in a while.
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Speaking in his pre-match press conference on Friday ahead of the clash against Bournemouth, Maresca said he made a mistake together with his team selection.
‘Certainly one of the regrets I actually have after the sport is I didn’t play with Josh [Acheampong].
‘So the rationale why we played with Trev, Tosin and Benoit is because analysing them [Leeds], we saw that the majority of the time they were playing long ball for [Dominic] Calvert-Lewin, for [Lukas] Nmecha.
‘And so we prefer physicality to win aerial duels. But even with that, we lost most of them.’
Acheampong has impressed when given the possibility, with the 19-year-old making nine appearances this season, five of them starts but hasn’t featured within the Premier League because the loss to Sunderland in October.
There have been calls for the academy graduate to get more game time and Maresca went on to say that he thinks the Bournemouth match can be a ‘similar game to Leeds’, so it is going to be interesting to see if he gives Acheampong a likelihood this time round.
‘They’re intense, Leeds was very intense. I feel I said after the sport that they were higher than us in all of the features and hopefully we will learn from that and be ready for tomorrow.’
The pinnacle coach also looked to dismiss claims his team are too inexperienced, adding: ‘We all the time speak about experience once we drop points. After we beat Barcelona, we drew against Arsenal, nobody was mentioning about experienced players.
‘So, again, I understand that once we don’t win, we’re all the time on the lookout for the rationale why, but I feel the rationale why we didn’t win against Leeds shouldn’t be due to experience, it’s because we weren’t adequate.
‘Who’s the oldest one for us within the pitch? Who was? Tosin. Did he play good? So, it’s not about experience. It’s about that 11 players, they weren’t adequate. I do know that we’re all the time on the lookout for experience, however it was a foul game for all of us.’
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