Maresca fires warning to Chelsea players after another loss and explains his substitutions

Enzo Maresca says his Chelsea side cannot continue to give away “presents” if they want to have a strong season.

The Blues let a one-goal lead slip after Trevoh Chalobah was sent off to lose 3-1 to Brighton at Stamford Bridge.

It comes after his side were beaten at Manchester United last weekend following a red card for goalkeeper Robert Sanchez, and Maresca has warned his side they must improve.

“The message that we just said inside has been quite clear: against any team in the Premier League you cannot continue to give away presents, because what we are doing in this moment is to give away presents in terms of red cards, that is a big mistake because the game completely changed,” Maresca said.

“For sure, you cannot continue to make mistakes, also because they are big mistakes in terms of game changes, the red card at Manchester United and the red card today.

“Then after that we tried to adjust a little bit with Josh Acheampong coming on, and he was ill over the last week. Josh, in that moment, our two central defenders were Josh (Acheampong) and Jorrel (Hato) that both are for sure fantastic players, fantastic talents, but not so many games in the Premier League, so when you are with 10 players it’s a moment that you have to manage the situation.”

Explaining his substitutions in the defeat, Maresca added: “We did the first change that was Josh for the red card for Andrey (Santos), because we needed a central defender, then the reason why Malo (Gusto) came on was just because Minteh was many times one-v-one with Reece, so we tried to give Reece help in that situation to defend the two-v-one.

“And then the last change, Jorrel was asking for a change because he had cramp.”

With Wesley Fofana, Tosin and Levi Colwill already sidelined through injury, the Blues will now be without Chalobah against Liverpool next weekend following his red card.