Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca has defended his rotation policy after fresh criticism from Manchester United legend Wayne Rooney.
Rooney believes Maresca made a mistake in making seven changes to his starting XI ahead of Chelsea’s Champions League draw at Qarabag on Wednesday.
The reason the Blues couldn’t win was clearly because they had too much rotation. If they had won, I wouldn’t even be able to praise the depth of the team. Because Chelsea have spent over £1bn over three years and are expected to win comfortably against Qarabag, regardless of who starts.
Rooney vs. Maresca: What you need to know
Rooney criticizes Maresca for excessive rotation against Qarabag Maresca addresses comments in Friday’s press conference Chelsea manager logically defends his philosophy Rooney is now the frontrunner for the ‘Most Controversial Pundit’ award
Sometimes you just can’t win as a manager, especially when you literally can’t win on the pitch.
Chelsea were on the back foot against Azerbaijan and one of the new players in the team, Jorel Hato, scored both goals in the 2-2 draw.
Joao Pedro, Marc Cucurella, Reece James and Robert Sanchez retained their positions from the 1-0 win against Tottenham Hotspur, while Tyrik George, Estevao, Jamie Gittens, Romeo Rabia, Andrei Santos, Tosin Adarabioyo and Hato all featured.
Maresca has a huge team and it is an impossible task to please everyone, but at least we have to try. These are players who still cost clubs tens of millions of dollars.
Former England striker Rooney said on his podcast after Chelsea drew 2-2 in Azerbaijan:
“If you keep cutting and changing things, the players won’t be happy. I think that’s going to bite them.”
“If they’re consistently getting results, you can’t question it. But if they’re not, you have to question it.”
Rooney added: “Most clubs now have a leadership group and I think as a group you have to go and ask questions of the manager.
“People often talk about the ‘power of the players,’ but this is not the power of the players.
“I would be worried if the team kept changing. If I was in that group, I would have told my teammates, ‘Look, I’m not happy with this.’
Maresca’s Rooney reaction was calm, not combative.
Maresca was asked about Rooney’s comments at a press conference on Friday ahead of Chelsea’s Premier League match against bottom club Wolves.
His response was not to “fight back.” It wasn’t a “war of words”. Rooney gave his opinion as a pundit, and Maresca gave a calm and sensible answer to a journalist’s question, after perhaps digging a little deeper to be fair…
Chelsea’s head coach said of Rooney’s comments, “We’re living in an era where everyone can say what they want to say.”
“Ever since I joined the club, my idea has been to rotate players. If we win, no one will complain. If we don’t win, I can understand that no one will agree. It’s natural to rotate players.”
“As a player, I loved the rotation. Football is a little different compared to a few years ago in terms of physicality and intensity. You can’t play 65 games with the same players in a season.”
“If you want to look at the season like a marathon, you have to think differently in the last spurts of February and March. But it’s a long race.”
“We are now in an era where everyone can say what they want to say.”
“It’s impossible to play 65 games a season with the same players.”Enzo Maresca responds to Wayne Rooney’s criticism of his team’s rotation 🔵 pic.twitter.com/XyqBuyb0mS
— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) November 7, 2025
Wayne Rooney: The rise of a controversial pundit
We say Rooney has “expressed his opinion as a pundit,” but his opinion on this season is… debatable. After all, that’s his prerogative.
On Tuesday, Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk addressed the latest criticism of the Premier League champions, towering over the nervous Rooney, who had previously questioned his form since signing a new contract.
While much of the criticism towards Liverpool is justified, Rooney has made some questionable comments this season.
Since the start of his career as a critic, which has been interrupted several times by business adventures, he has been very outspoken, mainly because he speaks before he thinks.
It would make a decent TV show and now he has his own podcast and he’s talked about so much this campaign that no club without a manager will touch him with a barge pole.
Some may think Rooney’s comment that Manchester United should have re-signed Danny Welbeck is a terrible take, but that’s not actually the case. That’s simply not a fashionable view, as Welbeck is not a shining young foreign striker.
There are other instances where Rooney has caused controversy. They predict Mohamed Salah will leave Liverpool in January, doubt the “ability” of Brian Mbeumo, who scored 20 Premier League goals for Brentford last season, and claim Harry Maguire should be included in England’s World Cup squad.
If you look at Rooney’s archives, you’ll find mostly mixed opinions.
To be honest, we love it. Keep coming, Waza. I have to keep the lights on somehow.
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