Enzo Maresca has been candid about why Alejandro Garnacho has seen limited minutes since his late-August move to Chelsea. The head coach says the winger arrived from Manchester United short of match fitness and that the club are managing his workload accordingly.<\/p>\n
\u201cGarna is doing well,\u201d Maresca told assembled media before a Carabao Cup tie with Wolverhampton Wanderers. \u201cGarna is another player who we are trying to manage him a little bit physically, because he arrived here from United not 100% in his physical condition.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is working hard every day, he is getting better and better, and in this moment we are happy with the way he is playing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garnacho\u2019s summer followed a public breakdown of relations at Old Trafford. After a cameo in United\u2019s Europa League final defeat to Tottenham Hotspur in May, he hinted at a move away. Amorim reportedly told the winger in front of the entire squad that he was best advised to find a new employer, and Garnacho was not permitted to visit United\u2019s training ground while Amorim and the first-team were in the building. The exile continued into the start of the current campaign when the 21-year-old was omitted from the group for the first two weeks of the season.<\/p>\n
A deal worth a reported \u00a340 million was completed at the end of August. Maresca has used Garnacho sparingly since, a choice the manager links directly to the summer standoff and the player\u2019s physical condition.<\/p>\n
Garnacho himself reflected on that period: \u201cIt was difficult moments, training alone, but I have nothing bad to say about my old club Manchester United. Just bad moments in life.\u201d<\/p>\n
The winger has logged a little more than 300 minutes for Chelsea. Maresca gave him only 11 Premier League minutes before his first start in October; he was substituted at half-time in his second league start and later scored his first Chelsea goal against Sunderland. Pedro Neto has emerged as Maresca\u2019s first-choice wide option, while Est\u00eav\u00e3o has matched Garnacho\u2019s number of starts (five) and delivered more goal contributions (three to one). A recent squad breakdown shows minutes and starts across the wide forwards and underlines the rotation shaping Chelsea\u2019s options.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maresca: Chelsea are managing Garnacho’s fitness after his disrupted exit from Manchester United….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4114,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1067,190,1163],"tags":[227,1021,1089],"class_list":["post-4115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-carabao-cup","category-chelsea","category-transfers","tag-alejandro-garnacho","tag-amorim","tag-chelsea-struggles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4115","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=4115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}