Given Pedro Neto had played two games in a row, we were sure Noni Madueke would start today. When we saw he wasn’t in the team – and wasn’t on the bench – our natural conclusion was that the winger was injured or ill.
However the post match interview with Enzo Maresca has just revealed something very curious – the coach has said that it was a “technical decision.”
Given that there were quite a few players out today, there can’t be many “technical” reasons which we can think of which would lead one of your senior, important players to be left out.
We hope this isn’t the start of something more serious like a rift between them. Just as things were starting to go well, a draw and a loss combined with Mykhailo Mudryk’s suspension has sent us spinning – and this is the last thing we wanted piled on top of that, frankly.
Noni Madueke’s absence from Chelsea’s squad today was due to a technical decision, not injury-related
— Kieran Gill (@kierangill_DM) December 26, 2024
We will see what happens in the coming days – but if he’s not around on Monday night when we play Ipswich there will be major alarm bells ringing. Maresca has been a huge fan of Noni’s so far – despite calling him out a couple of times for poor training performances.
UPDATE:
You can see Maresca’s reply in the video from the post match press conference embedded here:
Maresca blunt when asked about Madueke pic.twitter.com/QKiAHU5CzN
— MarescaMedia (@MarescaMedia) December 26, 2024
He doesn’t look delighted, let’s face it. We can only assume that Madueke has trained badly or broken a rule of some kind – it really hurt the team to have him miss out today, and Maresca would only do it if it was something he thought was important.
As always with these things, the truth will likely trickle out in the coming days. But all eyes will be on the teammsheet on Monday.
