Maresca defends team selection after Chelsea draw with Brentford

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Enzo Maresca felt his much-changed Chelsea side deserved to win in their goalless draw against Brentford – and he stood by his team selection. 

Maresca opted to start the game with Cole Palmer, Marc Cucurella, Nicolas Jackson and Pedro Neto all on the bench at the Gtech Community Stadium.

It severely blunted Chelsea’s attacking play, with their best chances to score only coming once substitutions were made in the second half.

Head coach Maresca explained: “We prepared the game to start one way and finish in another way.

“We played Thursday night in a demanding game [against Tottenham], 24 hours less [to prepare] than them.

“[It was a] tricky stadium on a tricky day. Sunny, the pitch was dry, they tried to kill the tempo of the game.

“Overall we did enough to win the game. We shot more than 20 times. Probably the only thing we missed was the goal but overall I’m happy with the performance

“The second half, last half an hour we probably created a little bit more but overall, between the first and second half, we did enough to win the game.

“If we decided to start in the first half the way we finished then probably after 45 minutes the team would not be physically good enough to finish the game so we tried to find solutions.”

Brentford boss Thomas Frank, meanwhile, argued that the hosts created more chances and were the better side.