Chelsea assistant head coach Willy Caballero passed on a message of praise to the players from Enzo Maresca.
Maresca was unable to conduct his usual post-match press conference after Saturday’s dramatic 2-1 win over Liverpool because he had been sent off late on when shown a second yellow card for darting down the touchline to celebrate Estevao’s stoppage-time winner.
Premier League rules say a manager cannot conduct his media obligations after a game in which they have been red-carded.
In his place, Caballero spoke to the media following a Chelsea win that inflicted a third straight defeat on league leaders Liverpool.
“He’s OK, he's OK,” Caballero said of Maresca. “He was so happy after the game.
“Unfortunately, he cannot be here because of the card, but he was so happy and he wanted me to do the press conference, but also he wanted me to praise the players because of the effort that they've done today.
“We believe that we deserve the victory after the chances that we created and how we played. Thanks to football and thanks for the effort of the players, we scored in the last seconds and we got the three points today.
“I believe it's because not just this week, but a few weeks that we've been holding our emotions because the last couple of games we've been playing well, but we finished a few games with ten players and we couldn't win the game.
“Today was really important, but at the same time we finished with a back four that is not usual, four full-backs. The players did it really well, the players on the bench were ready to go and ready to play. They did a really good effort, they played in different positions.”
