Enzo Maresca’s double decision for Chelsea in Man Utd loss was ‘really negative’

Chelsea were beaten 2-1 by Manchester United at Old Trafford on Sunday, with Enzo Maresca’s decision to take off Pedro Neto in the first half coming in for criticism

Former Liverpool midfielder Danny Murphy has criticised Enzo Maresca’s decision to substitute Pedro Neto during the first half of Chelsea’s defeat at Manchester United, suggesting he should have kept him on if he planned to take off Cole Palmer.

Chelsea arrived at Old Trafford hoping to secure their first victory there in 12 years, but their task was made significantly harder when Robert Sanchez was shown a red card in the fifth minute. Sanchez was sent off after bringing down Bryan Mbeumo, who was charging towards goal, and referee Peter Bankes didn’t hesitate to show him the red card.

Reacting to Sanchez’s dismissal, Maresca made a double substitution, replacing both his wingers. Indeed, Estevao and Pedro Neto were substituted for backup goalkeeper Filip Jorgensen and Tosin Adarabioyo.

READ MORE: Man Utd player ratings in win over Chelsea as 5/10 star goes from hero to zeroREAD MORE: Cole Palmer walks straight down tunnel after being taken off just 20 minutes into Man Utd clash

After Bruno Fernandes put United ahead with a close-range finish, Maresca made another defensive change, replacing an apparently injured Cole Palmer with Andrey Santos.

However, this change didn’t pay off, as Casemiro doubled United’s lead in the 37th minute before receiving a red card himself for a second bookable offence.

This left both teams with 10 players for the entire second half, but Maresca’s decision to substitute three of his four attackers within the first 21 minutes made Chelsea’s task of overturning a 2-0 deficit virtually impossible.

Despite a late goal from Trevoh Chalobah, it was too little too late for Chelsea as they suffered their first Premier League defeat of the season, losing 2-1 and extending their miserable run in Manchester.

On Match of the Day, Murphy gave his analysis of Chelsea’s performance and offered some advice to Maresca on how he could have better handled the situation.

Murphy commented: “I think bringing an extra defender on was understandable, taking off an attacker, but then a few minutes later and Palmer is off once they’re 1-0 down.

“We felt that Neto and Cole Palmer coming off was a really negative move.

“Ok we trust his word that he’s struggling with a bit of an injury, but then maybe bring him off at the beginning and leave Neto on for his pace because even when they got level men in the second-half they didn’t have that much of a threat, only Joao Pedro had that forward thinking mentality.”

Maresca explained his decision to substitute Neto and Estevao early in the game during his post-match press conference: “The reason why we changed Pedro [Neto] and Estevao [Willian] was because they attack with the five players always, and we defend with the four, and we can defend with the four when we are 11 vs 11.

“But 11 against them, I think we need to defend on the width, so we decided to go with the back five, this is the reason why.”

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