“I’m really not comfortable with it… far too easy” – Maresca’s cowardly decision criticised for a second time in a week | OneFootball

Chelsea put in a truly dreadful first half showing against Copenhagen tonight – almost matching their dire effort from last week.

They managed 0 shots of any kind, and changes at the break were inevitable. Enzo Maresca elected to remove Enzo Fernandez to keep him rested for this weekend, replacing him with Cole Palmer. But his other change was to take off youngster Josh Acheampong, who was playing at left back, and replace him with Marc Cucurella.

Lucy Ward, on co-commentary for TNT Sports, didn’t like that decision at all, mirroring the thoughts of many Chelsea fans who hate the way their coach is so quick to take off the youngest players whenever things aren’t going right, regardless of whether their performance merits it.

“I tell you what I’m really not comfortable with: taking a young player off at half time in both legs who hasn’t even been the worst player in that particular unit. It’s too easy to do that, far too easy as a manager.”

She’s referring back to her thoughts from the first leg where a very similar situation occurred. After 45 minutes very isolated up top, Maresca took off 17 year old Shim Mheuka who was making his debut,

“I’m still a bit disappointed about Mheuka coming off. The message that it sends. He really couldn’t have done much more,” Ward said at the time.

Acheampong sub even less merited

Today was even more egregious – not only was Acheampong not bad, he was actively one of the better players in that first half. We understand why Maresca does it – it’s the low risk option. But it’s a little cowardly, as many fans have pointed out.

As Ward says, it doesn’t send a good message to anyone, and will be a difficult moment for some of these young players trying to earn their chance.