Enzo Maresca was forced into major adjustments after Robert S\u00e1nchez received a red card in the fifth minute of Saturday\u2019s fixture against Manchester United. The early dismissal disrupted Maresca\u2019s plans and left Chelsea to defend almost a full match with ten men.<\/p>\n
\u201cCole he tried this morning. He had a test to play this game, he was not 100% fit,\u201d Maresca said after the game. \u201cHe made a fantastic effort to play this game but he was not 100%. Yes it is a problem that he has already had for a long time, his groin. He wanted to play this game for the team, but after 20 minutes he started to feel something so we decided to change it.\u201d Palmer had featured midweek in the Champions League, scoring on his 100th appearance, and Maresca clearly faces a balancing act over the star\u2019s fitness going forward.<\/p>\n
Chelsea conceded twice while reduced to ten players, though a separate Casemiro sending off gave the Blues renewed momentum later in the match. Trevoh Chalobah brought a goal back in the second half, but the recovery came too late as Chelsea suffered their first Premier League defeat of the young season.<\/p>\n
S\u00e1nchez posted on Instagram after the game apologising for his error at Old Trafford: \u201cOn me today guys, big sorry for that, team put a massive effort [in] the second half but couldn\u2019t get there.\u201d The Spanish goalkeeper raced out of his area when Bryan Mbeumo chased a dangerous ball; he missed the ball and took Mbeumo down, with referee Peter Bankes issuing a red card.<\/p>\n
Cameras captured Maresca\u2019s reaction to the challenge; as soon as S\u00e1nchez made contact with Mbeumo the Italian manager appeared to understand the likely outcome. S\u00e1nchez\u2019s dismissal set an unwanted record, making him the fastest Chelsea recipient of a red card in the Premier League era and the third-fastest goalkeeper sending off in the competition\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
Filip J\u00f6rgensen is expected to start during S\u00e1nchez\u2019s suspension and will have the chance to impress on Tuesday in the Carabao Cup tie against Lincoln City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maresca’s tactics undone by an early red; Palmer played injured and S\u00e1nchez apologised on Instagram.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2954,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,969],"tags":[939,319,1053],"class_list":["post-2955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-premier-league","tag-casemiro","tag-cole-palmer","tag-robert-sanchez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}