Enzo Maresca acknowledges that Chelsea‘s decision to axe Trevoh Chalobah for their preseason tour of the United States was a “sad decision.”
The 25-year-old, who has been a member of Chelsea since he was eight years old, appears to be leaving Stamford Bridge this summer after being left off of the team that traveled to the United States for the club’s preseason games.
Chalobah is rumored to have drawn attention from many Premier League teams, and Chelsea is reportedly willing to sell the defender for a price above £30 million.
Chalobah, who still has four years left on his Chelsea deal, missed the first six months of the previous season due to a hamstring injury but played in 13 Premier League games the next season.
The defender is reportedly shocked by the choice, but Maresca asserts that the decision to leave Chalobah out of his preseason squad was motivated by fierce competition for a spot in Chelsea’s defense in light of the arrival of Tosin Adarabioyo on a free transfer from Fulham and the return of Wesley Fofana, who missed the entire previous campaign recovering from ACL surgery.
Asked about Chalobah’s situation in his first pre-season press conference in Santa Clara on Tuesday evening, Maresca said: ‘First of all, from my point of view, it’s always sad to leave players out, that can be out of a pre-season, or can be out of the squad or out of the first eleven because in the end they all work for the same target, that is to be part of the same team.
‘The Trevoh situation for me is quite clear, we have Axel [Disasi] there, we have Tosin [Adarabioyo] there, we have Wes [Fofana] who in these two weeks has worked very good and is finally back, we have some very young profiles like Josh Acheampong who is doing fantastic.
‘It’s a sad decision but we have to take the decision.’
Maresca also stressed that he was unable to highlight any potential errors made during Mauricio Pochettino’s reign which could have contributed to Chelsea’s multiple injury problems last season.
‘I always say the same, it’s already difficult to judge a situation when you are inside, imagine when you are not here,’ Maresca said when asked about Chelsea’s issue with injuries under Pochettino.
‘So I don’t know what kind of problem they had the last year or two years ago.
‘The only thing I can say is fortunately we started two weeks ago, we didn’t have any problems, any injuries, and we’re going to try to also manage that kind of situation that in the past has been a problem.
‘But as I said, I don’t know the reason why they had many injuries in the past. We are focused now on trying to create personal work prevention, these kind of things, to avoid injury.’