Frank Leboeuf was baffled by Enzo Maresca’s decision to start Cole Palmer against Manchester United as the Chelsea midfielder continues to struggle with a groin injury.
Palmer was an injury concern going into the game after he was seen holding his groin in the closing stages of Chelsea’s 3-1 defeat away to Bayern Munich in the Champions League on Wednesday.
The midfielder missed Chelsea’s games against West Ham and Fulham with the same issue and was also absent from international duty with England last month as he looked to resolve the issue.
And despite being selected to start on Sunday, Palmer was withdrawn just 21 minutes into Chelsea’s 2-1 defeat to United at Old Trafford, heading straight down the tunnel after seemingly indicating that there was still an issue with his groin.
Maresca conceded after the game that Palmer was not ‘100 per cent fit’ to play on Sunday, and Leboeuf is unsure why the Chelsea boss chose to start him given that uncertainty.
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‘Cole Palmer is a fantastic player and you need a Cole Palmer to create something, but you need him at 100 per cent,’ the former Chelsea defender told ESPN.
‘If you have a Cole Palmer at 60 or 70 per cent, he’s going to be useless because he can’t develop his skills.
‘I heard the coach say ‘Well, he made a huge effort and he wanted to play’ but if I am the coach, you stay on the bench.
‘I had many groin problems throughout my career and you cannot play – it’s a nightmare. It can last for six months so you need a rest and to make sure you properly heal and you come back only when you’re 100 per cent.
‘Even if you are Cole Palmer, Maradonna or Zidane you only come back when you’re 100 per cent because otherwise you aren’t going to be as good as we expect.’
Prior to Palmer’s substitution, Chelsea had been reduced to ten men following Robert Sanchez’s straight red for a reckless foul on Bryan Mbeumo.
Maresca chose to withdraw both Estevao and Pedro Neto to try and sure up the Blues’ defence, but Leboeuf believes that Palmer should have been sacrificed given he clearly wasn’t fully fit in the first place.
‘When you know that you have someone who isn’t fully fit and you have to change a creative player, then you don’t change Neto, you change Palmer because you are going to save Palmer and give a chance to Neto to perform, who is 100 per cent fit,’ he added.
‘That’s insane. I don’t know why nobody asked him in the press conference why he changed Neto and not Palmer, knowing that Palmer was not 100 per cent.’
Explaining the reasoning behind his early changes on Sunday, Maresca said: ‘The reason why we changed Pedro [Neto] and Estevao [Willian] was because they attack with the five players always, and we defend with the four, and we can defend with the four when we are 11 vs 11, but 11 against ten, I think we need to defend on the width, so we decided to go with the back five, this is the reason why.
‘And then the other one, Garna, he was ready to go on, but then Wes [Fofana] asked for the change, because he was tired after a long time, so we changed and we decided to go for Tyrique, and the idea was to give Garnacho minutes.’
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