Enzo Maresca said Manchester City took off Rayan Cherki and Marc Guehi at half-time against Aston Villa to avoid red cards. Guehi made a mistake for the only goal of the first 45 minutes and Cherki was part of a midfield that struggled, and neither reappeared for the second half.
Maresca explains the decision
It was the third mistake Guehi has made in the last two Premier League games, and Maresca suggested that the workload of the centre-back was a factor in deciding to take him off as well as the caution he had already picked up. Rico Lewis came on at right-back and Abdukodir Khusanov moved inside.
"He's okay, just a technical decision like happened in all the games that the manager decided to make changes. I'm not worried about Marc at all. I know he is playing every minute since the season started with us and the national team, so it's not easy," said Maresca.
"The change was also because he was on a yellow card and the way we want to be aggressive sometimes to have one yellow card can be dangerous. But I'm not worried at all."
Cherki's substitution and Bouaddi's absence
This was the fourth game already this season that Cherki has been replaced at half-time, albeit he was sacrificed at Old Trafford following Phil Foden's red card and was taken off with City cruising past Norwich in the Carabao Cup. Maresca said that the booking Cherki had picked up also contributed to the decision to bring Phil Foden on, and also explained why Ayyoub Bouaddi did not feature.
"It's not with Rayan. The last game I changed him at half-time, I changed him, Ruben Dias and one more player against PSG so it's not just Rayan. Today I changed Rayan but also Marc Guehi," he said.
"In that moment, what I can see, where we can improve things but the main reason for Marc and for Rayan was because both were on yellow cards and with this stadium sometimes the referee also with the noise they judge in a different way so I prefer to change players."
"I think against PSG it was a bit different. Today we needed a technical midfielder, that's why Rayan was out and Phil was inside. No doubt that Ayyoub is going to help us. Today Enzo and Elliot both had a very good game and we have so many game that Ayyoub is going to play minutes."
