“The reality is…” – Maresca has bad team news for Chelsea fans after Arsenal draw

Enzo Maresca took his press conference last night after Chelsea’s draw with Arsenal, and had some really interesting things to say.

He took a special moment to praise both Robert Sanchez and Reece James, who were both great, but when he was asked whether his captain would be ready to go again in midweek he had the answer we all knew was coming.

Maresca rules James out of midweek Leeds trip

Reece James speaks to Sky Sports.

“No. No, the reality is no [he won’t be able to play]. Robert was very good,” Maresca said.

“When you are with 10 players against Arsenal, for sure if you want to take a point or win the game, you need some special performance, like Robert, like Reece, as you said. So we are very happy with Robert’s performance. Reece, now, his performance has been fantastic, top. Now, we have a game on Wednesday. For him, very good. We need to manage him, we need to control him, we need to control a little bit his situation. But he was very good tonight.”

It was already pretty impressive that James played twice this week in such big games – we’re more than happy for him to take a midweek break. When he’s playing this well, we can’t afford to lose him even for a short period. There’s no reason to take that risk, and we can beat Leeds without him.

This is another chance for the likes of Malo Gusto and Andrey Santos to step up.

In other news…

Reece James was a machine for Chelsea out there, single handedly keeping Arsenal at bay at times. His stats from the game were just silly.

James’ heroic performance in midfield against the Gunners, was also noted by Sky Sports, and the captain was lavished with praise by pundits at full time.