Enzo Maresca struck an unexpectedly upbeat note after Chelsea were reduced to 10 men and still secured victory against Benfica on Tuesday. The dismissal of Jo\u00e3o Pedro was the club\u2019s third red card in four matches, the same total they had collected across the previous 49 games.<\/p>\n
Maresca answered critics bluntly. \u201cA good thing is we are improving and we can win with 10 players,\u201d Maresca fired back when faced with these unflattering statistics.<\/p>\n
The three recent sendings-off are distinct incidents. Robert S\u00e1nchez was dismissed against Man Utd for denial of a goalscoring opportunity. Trevoh Chalobah received a red against Brighton also for denying a goalscoring opportunity. Jo\u00e3o Pedro\u2019s exit at Benfica followed two yellow cards in the same game.<\/p>\n
The S\u00e1nchez and Chalobah red cards both coincided with defeats to Manchester United and Brighton respectively. S\u00e1nchez was sent off after clattering into Bryan Mbeumo following a Benjamin \u0160e\u0161ko flick-on. Chalobah\u2019s dismissal came as he attempted to rectify Andrey Santos\u2019s leaden-footed touch.<\/p>\n
Maresca sought to place the sequence in perspective and to strip away alarm. \u201cFor us it is a journey that started this season and, game after game, we get better,\u201d the Italian coach mused.<\/p>\n
He drew a distinction with past incidents and defended the intent behind the recent fouls. \u201cThe Newcastle and Flamengo red cards [earned by Nicolas Jackson last season] were for bad actions, then S\u00e1nchez [vs Man Utd] is not for a bad action, it\u2019s just because he wants to defend the goal, Chalobah [vs Brighton] is because he wants to defend the goal.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me personally, it\u2019s not any concern or issue, it\u2019s just a moment probably you need to take a different option and avoid. Sometimes it\u2019s better to concede the goal or the chance because then it\u2019s 11 vs. 11.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maresca framed the run as part of an ongoing process rather than a crisis, insisting improvement is visible even amid the disciplinary setbacks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maresca says Chelsea can win with 10 and the red-card run is a symptom of a learning process<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3446,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,172],"tags":[944,317,260],"class_list":["post-3447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-epl","tag-andrey-santos","tag-benjamin-sesko","tag-bryan-mbeumo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3447","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=3447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}