Enzo Maresca will not be on the touchline when Chelsea attempt to halt Aston Villa\u2019s 10-match winning run on Saturday. The 45-year-old will watch the game from the stands after being handed a one-match touchline ban.<\/p>\n
The sanction follows Maresca\u2019s booking for protesting during Chelsea\u2019s 2\u20132 draw with Newcastle United last weekend. That was Maresca\u2019s seventh yellow of the season in all competitions and his fifth in the Premier League. As a result of his five domestic bookings, Maresca is serving the one-match ban, leaving assistant manager Willy Caballero to convey instructions from the dugout.<\/p>\n
Disciplinary problems have been a recurring theme for Chelsea this season and Maresca\u2019s conduct has drawn attention. Earlier in the campaign he was sent off after receiving two yellow cards against Liverpool, the second shown for his wild celebrations following Chelsea\u2019s late winner. That dismissal resulted in a touchline ban that ruled him out of Chelsea\u2019s 3\u20130 win over Nottingham Forest in October.<\/p>\n
Maresca was also shown bookings in Premier League matches against Manchester United and Burnley, and he received cautions in Champions League fixtures with Bayern Munich and Barcelona. Those incidents have mirrored a wider disciplinary record at Chelsea: the club has accumulated four Premier League red cards this term and 35 yellow cards, a total exceeded only by Bournemouth (42) and Tottenham Hotspur (44). Chelsea are also committing the fourth-most fouls per match in the division.<\/p>\n
Asked about his own disciplinary record and that of his players ahead of the Villa game, Maresca responded that he welcomed the comparison between his team and himself. \u201cListen, the club this morning showed me a comment from some of you that said the team reflect the manager and I\u2019m very proud of that. Because of the way the team is doing,\u201d said the Chelsea boss.<\/p>\n
With Maresca in the stands, Caballero will be the primary voice at pitch level as Chelsea try to disrupt Villa\u2019s run.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maresca banned from the touchline as Chelsea face Villa; discipline has shadowed the season persists<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5426,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,969,1325],"tags":[1162,1215],"class_list":["post-5427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-premier-league","category-unbeaten-runs","tag-analytics","tag-controversy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5427","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=5427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}