Enzo Maresca didn’t mince words after Chelsea’s nerve-jangling 4-3 Carabao Cup win at Wolves.
What should have been a controlled passage into the quarter-finals instead featured a moment of self-inflicted chaos, Liam Delap’s red card, which the Chelsea manager called “very stupid” and branded the club’s growing list of dismissals this season “embarrassing.”
Delap, freshly back from a 10-week hamstring lay-off, lasted barely half an hour on the Molineux turf.
Introduced as a second-half sub to inject energy and calm the attack, the 22-year-old was instead shown two yellow cards inside 26 minutes.
The first came for pushing Yerson Mosquera; the second followed a reckless elbow into Emmanuel Agbadou. Maresca’s verdict was blunt and absolute: Delap deserved the sending-off, and it was entirely avoidable.
Chelsea’s night began with swagger, a 3-0 lead at half-time that suggested an easy passage.
But the second half collapsed into drama as Wolves roared back, pulling level and forcing a chaotic finish that only Jamie Gittens’ late strike and Chelsea’s grit could finally settle. Maresca pointed to the three conceded goals and the red card as errors the team must learn to prevent.
This moment wasn’t isolated. It was part of a worrying pattern: Chelsea have now accumulated multiple red cards in a short span, including Maresca’s own dismissal for celebrating a late winner earlier in the season.
Asked if this pointed to a broader indiscipline problem, Maresca drew a distinction — some reds are unavoidable, others are plain reckless. The latter, he said, are the ones that stain the club’s reputation.
Maresca offered a frank assessment of Delap’s temperament: a player who sometimes plays for himself, who struggles to rein in impulse and heed warnings from the touchline.
Despite repeated cautions from the bench to keep calm, Delap failed to control his aggression when it mattered most, and Chelsea will pay the price this weekend when he misses the London derby at Tottenham.
Maresca’s message was as clear as it was urgent: concentration, composure, and accountability.
Chelsea can forgive the occasional misfortune in a brutal sport, but they cannot afford a run of avoidable lapses. If the Blues want to translate moments of promise into consistent progress, the era of “stupid” dismissals must end now.
