Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca paid tribute to Liverpool\u2019s reaction to the death of Diogo Jota and defended the reigning champions\u2019 start to the campaign ahead of Saturday evening\u2019s clash at Stamford Bridge.<\/p>\n
Maresca, who was a teammate of Antonio Puerta at Sevilla, drew on that experience when discussing the challenges Liverpool have faced since Jota\u2019s death in July. Puerta suffered a cardiac arrest on the pitch in a game against Getafe in August 2007 and passed away in hospital three days later aged just 22.<\/p>\n
Asked about vulnerabilities Liverpool have shown on the pitch in recent weeks, including defeats to Crystal Palace and Galatasaray, Maresca instead highlighted the way the club and players have coped off the field. He said: “I don’t think that now it’s better to play Liverpool just because they drop points in the last two games. It’s always a tough game. Always a big team.”<\/p>\n
He added: “For me personally, the way they are doing this season, in any case, is fantastic. Especially after [Diogo] Jota’s tragedy. I live exactly the same when I was a player 20 years ago. It’s not easy for the players, it’s not easy for the club, it’s not easy for the manager when you arrive at the training ground and you see every day that place empty. So you have to be very strong.<\/p>\n
“And this is the reason why for me they are doing not good, even better than good, even more. Because they are trying to deal with a problem that is not easy.”<\/p>\n
Chelsea enter the match with an extensive injury and suspension list that has particularly affected the defence. Wesley Fofana, Levi Colwill and Tosin Adarabioyo are all injured, while Trevoh Chalobah is suspended after he was sent off in last weekend\u2019s 3\u20131 home defeat to Brighton & Hove Albion. That situation opens the door for Josh Acheampong to start in central defence, a role Maresca has previously handed him.<\/p>\n
On his selection approach, Maresca said: “I think it’s a fact that I really trust the young players. Not just the young players that we buy, but also the young players from the academy,” and: “Again, we gave games last year to Josh Acheampong, having players on the bench, senior players. So that shows that I trust young players. The same thing happened with Ty [George]. So I really trust all the players we have. As you said, in this moment we have four or five defenders out. But we’re going to try to adapt and find the right solution for tomorrow.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maresca lauds Liverpool’s resilience after Diogo Jota’s death and explains Chelsea’s defensive choice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3517,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,175,969],"tags":[1081,1100,239],"class_list":["post-3518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-liverpool","category-premier-league","tag-adaptation","tag-defence","tag-diogo-jota"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3518","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=3518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}