ENZO MARESCA has revealed Chelsea stars are FINING one another in an effort to curb their ill discipline.
The Blues have seen red three times already in the Premier League this season, and five times – if you include one red for Maresca – in all competitions.
That is half their league record of six red cards for a single Prem season set back in 2007/08, with eight cards overall.
If they were to continue at this rate, Chelsea would end the campaign seeing 14 players sent off, smashing the current record of nine red cards set by Sunderland and Queen’s Park Rangers set in 2009/10 and 2011/12 respectively.
Maresca has admitted it is a huge problem for his team, with two of the games where they have received their three red cards seeing them pick up their two league defeats this season against Manchester United and Brighton.
But the squad are making a conscious effort to try and curb that trend by taking matters into their own hands.
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Italian coach Maresca insisted his squad did not have a discipline problem when speaking ahead of the west Londoners’ clash against Ajax tonight, and explained why he does not dish out the punishments.
The 45-year-old said: “I have four kids — when they do something wrong, I do not punish them.
“I try to teach them to do the right things. I try to do this with the players too. This is the way I like to do things.
“[The] Malo [Gusto] red card [against Forest], we can avoid that. Joao [Pedro] red card, we can probably avoid that.
“You can all avoid, but at the same time, if you see Trevoh’s [Chalobah] red card, you can allow him to shoot and then we’ll see. Manchester United, it’s exactly the same.
“The last one, I think it was a huge mistake [from Gusto]. The game was finished and it was 0-3. They were shouting to each other not to concede. They wanted to continue to be intense and aggressive.”
He continued: “For sure, when you concede five or six red cards, there is something that we have to improve.
“It’s something that we are going to improve…
“I think the players have a system between the changing room, inside the changing room, so a fine is something that they manage.”
Following their match with Ajax, Chelsea face Sunderland on Saturday.
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