Chelsea may have won 4-3 last night against Wolverhampton Wanderers in the fourth round of the League Cup, but Enzo Maresca was not particularly pleased by what he witnessed in that game.
Personally, I
was quite entertained in a relatively low-pressure situation: from the absolute cakewalk of a first half with our youngsters shining, to the silliness of the second that displayed some familiar folly from said youth, to a somewhat amusing* red card to Liam Delap (another one!), to the stunning effort by Jamie Gittens to make sure we didn’t give away the easy win at the end.
*I don’t imagine he was looking to elbow the dude in the head, but when you play silly games, you can easily win silly prizes
I didn’t even really bother to check what Maresca said afterwards. Sure, there was some drama, but we were through to the next round, rested several key players (or had them play just a few minutes), and didn’t pick up any new injuries, so surely all’s well that ends well … right?
Turns out, not so much!
The Mister let the veil slip, and while he aimed his initial salvo in the general direction of everyone, he then zeroed in on Liam Delap, who was just coming back from a long layoff and was probably a bit too eager.
“Very happy first-half, very upset second-half. This is the analysis and my personal view of the game. I think first-half we were very, very good […] playing nice forward, great chances. We didn’t concede nothing.
“[But] second half we were not doing the right things. Probably the first goal we conceded opened a little bit the game, gave them the boost, the energy to come back in the game.
“And then the three goals we conceded, I think all of them we can avoid and for sure today also we had a very stupid red card that is completely unnecessary. […] I completely understand when there are red cards like Brighton or Man United that is difficult, but red card against Nottingham Forest and red card today, both we can avoid that. And we have to avoid that.”
I mean, red cards are rarely “necessary”.
Obviously, both of Delap’s yellows fall into the highly “unnecessary” category, though on some level, that’s how he plays the game. We might recall he led the league in yellow cards last season, with Ipswich Town. Meanwhile, Chelsea led the league, as a team, in yellows. A perfect marriage!
“It’s embarrassing when it’s a red card like today. Because it’s two yellow cards in five minutes, 10 minutes, I don’t know, seven minutes. Both I think we can avoid that. So it’s not good.
“After the yellow card I told [Delap] four or five times to keep calm. But Liam is a player that when he’s inside the pitch probably he’ll be playing the game for himself and he struggles to realise and to listen around him.”
-Enzo Maresca; source: Football.London
Public shaming is an interesting strategy. Liam just needs to watch some Diego Costa tape to see how to toe the line but not quite step over it. Or he just needs to become as good as Harry Kane, and then you can do whatever you want to the defenders.
Delap’s being put through the wringer at the moment, but he just needs to channel his energy and his … enthusiasm … in the right outlets.
