John Terry said earlier this week that Enzo Maresca made too many changes for Chelsea’s defeat to Leeds United and the Blues head coach has now responded to those comments
Chelsea icon John Terry(Image: Marc Atkins)
Enzo Maresca has responded to criticism from former Chelsea captain John Terry, who earlier this week shared his opinion on what went wrong for the Blues in their defeat to Leeds United.
Chelsea were beaten 3-1 at Elland Road on Wednesday night, with defensive mistakes costing the visitors in Yorkshire. With the game coming just over 72 hours after the Blues’ gruelling 1-1 draw at home to Arsenal, Maresca decided to make five changes to his side.
One was forced, with Moises Caicedo missing out through suspension. In came Andrey Santos for the Ecuadorian, while Tosin Adarabioyo replaced Malo Gusto, Benoit Badiashile for Wesley Fofana, Jamie Gittens for Reece James and Liam Delap for Pedro Neto.
Rotation is something Maresca has done plenty of since being appointed head coach in the summer of 2024. In his debut season at Stamford Bridge, the Italian had the luxury of being able to rotate in the Conference League – a competition Chelsea ended up winning – with the sides in that tournament proving not to be up to the Blues’ standard.
This season, though, with Chelsea in the Champions League, rotating his side comes with a bit more risk. football.london understands the club’s board are fully behind Maresca and his decision to manage minutes for some of his players, with this not being the first time this term that the head coach has faced criticism for chopping and changing his XI.
Terry, speaking after the Leeds defeat, was not happy with how Chelsea performed at Elland Road and believes a big factor was the much-changed side. Taking to his TikTok page, the Blues icon ranted: “Goal from a set-piece, individual mistakes defensively, clearly not good enough. Maybe that’s an opportunity for the manager to look at the squad and go, ‘okay, rotation’s not for me going forward I know my best starting XI, or best starting 13 or 14, and I am going to stick with that.”
However, Maresca is not sure that should be the case. Speaking in Friday morning’s pre-Bournemouth press conference, the Chelsea boss said: “Now I don’t know if the solution is to have 12 or 14 players and the rest just play some minutes.
“But we are trying to understand. Now, if today you play every three days, two days like now with the same XI, I don’t know.”
Chelsea travel to Bournemouth this afternoon as the Blues look to put Wednesday’s disappointment behind them. A win for the west Londoners on the south coast could see them move as high as third, with Aston Villa, the side directly above them, hosting leaders Arsenal earlier in the afternoon.
