Liam Delap has apologised to his Chelsea team-mates for his red card at Wolves, with Enzo Maresca saying he knows the 22-year-old well enough to have had his public pop at him.
Delap’s two yellows received after coming on as a substitute in their Carabao Cup win on Wednesday angered Maresca, who described them as ‘unnecessary’, ’embarrassing’ and ‘stupid’. The Blues managed to win 4-3 despite going down to 10 men in the 86th minute.
Delap is now suspended for Chelsea’s trip to Tottenham on Saturday, but in the build-up, Maresca said: ‘Liam, he knows everything. He knows that he made a mistake. Full stop. No more than that.
‘In the changing room after the game, he apologised to everyone. If I say that we need to avoid a red card, it’s because we need to avoid red card. I say what I think is correct to say.
‘Sometimes we had a red card that was difficult to avoid and sometimes we had a red card that we could avoid. Some of the red cards that we concede, we can avoid it.
‘Liam, when he’s inside the pitch, is more focused to do his battle against the central defender than the rest. This was what I was telling, what I was trying to say after that game.’
Liam Delap was sent off against Wolves in midweek after elbowing Emmanuel Agbadou
Delap’s red card irked Maresca who labelled the striker as ‘stupid’ and ’embarrassing’ for it
Speaking on Friday, Maresca clarified his comments about Delap after Wednesday’s red card
Maresca explained how well he knows Delap, saying: ‘There are three players in this team that I know them better than the rest – Romeo Lavia, Cole Palmer and Liam Delap – because I know them from the Under-21s (at Manchester City) four years ago.
‘So I know Liam always and I know that Liam will be a fantastic player for us but there are some things like the rest that he needs to improve.
‘It’s something that we need to learn. Something that we have to do better. And for sure, no doubt that in the future we’re going to be better also on that.’
On Palmer, who is still not training amid his hamstring injury, Maresca said: ‘I just met him in the canteen for breakfast and I told him, ‘I will say that in one week you are back.’ He was laughing. Now with Cole, exactly the same plan, wait and hopefully he can be back soon.’
