Graham Potter has claimed to Football London that the red card had an impact on why Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang did not feature for Chelsea last night.
The Blues fell to another defeat last night, losing 2-1 to West London rivals Fulham at Craven Cottage.
They were certainly not helped by the sending off of Joao Felix in the second half, when the scores were level. The Portugal international had impressed a lot in his debut for the club up until that point.
Falling to 10 men saw Potter forced to make a number of substitutions he may not have been planning in attempt to get the Blues back into the game.
One of the most interesting decisions however was not utilising recognised striker Aubameyang from the bench despite needing a goal in the closing stages.
The manager has now claimed that what he needed from his side with one less player did not involve the 33-year-old.
Potter couldn’t bring on Aubameyang
He said: “We had a back five and felt we should go to a 4-4-1 and keep Kai on because I felt he was leading the line and winning challenges and duels.
“We wanted to use Hakim [Ziyech] and Carney [Chukwuemeka] to break from wide and Conor [Gallagher] to break from the centre because you know you’re going to get driven back a bit. So that was the thinking.”
Aubameyang has hardly enjoyed a dream return to the Premier League since his £10m transfer on deadline day last summer.
He only played one match under Thomas Tuchel, with him coming in off the back of his prior relationship with the former manager.
Reports recently have claimed he is extremely unhappy at his situation under Potter, and his reaction to being subbed off after already not starting against Manchester City could of suggested he was coming to the end of his Chelsea career.
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