COMPLICATIONS
WHY MARESCA IS NOW FINDING IT DIFFICULT TO FULLY ROTATE PLAYERS
WHOLESALE rotation as the season reaches its climax is “complicated” for Enzo Maresca, writes Jordan Blackwell.
The Leicester City manager chose only to make a handful of changes last week despite arguing their fixture schedule showed a lack of care for the health of the players.
Maresca had been angry that Sky Sports and the EFL had moved their game at Plymouth to a Friday night – just 72 hours after another long trip to Millwall.
But for City’s third match in seven days, Maresca made just three changes, with the other seven outfield players having started every one of the fixtures over the past week.
Earlier in the campaign, Maresca regularly rotated six or seven players for midweek matches, and mostly to good effect, with City’s results consistent.
But now he says the back-up players have spent too long on the sidelines and their match fitness has depleted.
Explaining his team selection amid three games in a week, Maresca said: “I spoke with some of them, they all said that they were recovered and they were okay.
“The reason why we changed three players was because of that.
“At this stage of the season, to make six or seven changes, probably it’s difficult compared to the beginning of the season when we did it many times. Now it’s more complicated.
“The reason why is that the players who are playing now are physically a little bit more prepared compared to the players that are a long time not getting minutes.”
The seven outfielders to start against Birmingham, Millwall, and Plymouth were Ricardo Pereira, Wout Faes, Jannik Vestergaard, Harry Winks, Wilfred Ndidi, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and Stephy Mavididi.
None of them were at their best on Friday night, with only Ndidi substituted, the Nigerian replaced by Dennis Praet.
Conor Coady is perhaps the most glaring recent omission of recent weeks, the centre-back having been rotated regularly in the first half of the season.
He has started just one Championship match this calendar year, the 1-0 win at Sunderland in early March.