Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca has confirmed that the brutal schedule is his most difficult challenge as the Blues prepare to take on Bournemouth on Saturday afternoon.
After a shocking 3-1 defeat against Leeds United at Elland Road, Chelsea head to the south coast to face the Cherries at Vitality Stadium, hoping to get back to winning ways.
Maresca made no attempt to hide his frustration with Chelsea’s relentless schedule as he looked ahead to the Premier League trip to Bournemouth.
Chelsea’s performance against Leeds will go down as their worst display of the season so far.
What’s even more shocking is the fact that it came after back-to-back phenomenal performances against Barcelona in the Champions League and Arsenal in the Premier League.
After the flat display on Wednesday, Maresca has admitted that managing his squad between games has become one of the toughest parts of the job.
Speaking at his pre-match press conference, Maresca explained that the short turnaround is forcing him to keep tweaking his squad.
“Most of the rotation we do is because we have some players who, in this moment, are not able to play every three days,” Maresca said.
“So the rotation we have done in the past, this is the reason why. It’s [the schedule] the most difficult thing for me personally this season because, for many reasons, we have to make changes.
“We played two days ago, and we came back from Leeds yesterday afternoon and have a session this morning.
“Most of them cannot take part in the session because they need to recover, so we will try to prepare in the best way possible for tomorrow’s game.”
Maresca made five changes for the Leeds game, with Wesley Fofana, Reece James, Malo Gusto, and Pedro Neto among those left out of the starting line-up.
On the plus side, the Blues head into Saturday’s match against Bournemouth without any fresh injury concerns, so Maresca will likely return his heavy hitters to the starting XI.