‘No reason to panic’, Maresca blames red cards for Chelsea’s poor run

Enzo Maresca says there is “no reason to panic” over Chelsea’s poor run, pointing to a series of red cards as the main cause while preparing to welcome Jose Mourinho back to Stamford Bridge.

Chelsea face Benfica in the Champions League on Tuesday, having started the season with a Club World Cup win in July but recently losing three of their last four matches in all competitions.

The Blues also lost their opening Champions League group match against Bayern Munich and now need a victory to revive their campaign.

Maresca admitted Chelsea must improve discipline after red cards contributed to Premier League defeats against Manchester United and Brighton.

Speaking ahead of Tuesday’s fixture, the Italian noted that four of Chelsea’s last five defeats had come after a dismissal. He accepted that he could have made better tactical choices in those games.

He stressed that Chelsea’s only loss with 11 players on the field was the 3-1 defeat to Bayern Munich earlier this month.

“For me personally, there is not any reason that we need to create panic, knowing that football, you know better than me, football is a crazy world,” Maresca said.

“I don’t think we need to defend ourselves in this moment because the reality is that I have a very good feeling with the squad we have.”

Maresca added it would be an “absolute honour” to face Mourinho, who was named Benfica coach earlier this month. The Portuguese manager won three league titles and several cups during two spells with Chelsea.

Chelsea will assess Moises Caicedo, Andrey Santos and Joao Pedro after they picked up knocks in the weekend defeat to Brighton.

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