Julien Laurens explains why he believes the appointment of Enzo Maresca at Chelsea is an option. (1:19)
On paper, it looked like a dream combination: Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo, two young dynamos with complementary skills, were signed through Chelsea to solidify the club’s midfield for the next decade.
It took 205 million pounds ($278 million) to raise it (Fernandez, 105. 8 million pounds from Benfica; Caicedo, £100m up front and another £15m from Brighton), but that’s the cost of doing business. winner and one of the most promoted prospects in the Premier League.
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The two signed contracts covering more than 8 years, which gave them enough time to determine the price of their investment (and also spread out the massive payment for the move throughout that era). But already, Les Bleus have come up against a major challenge, and no, it’s not the fact that they are now in their fifth coach in two years, despite the commitment to stability as a cultural price. The challenge is that when Fernandez ruled through injury for the latter part of the Premier League campaign, Chelsea came out on top. Much better.
An absence that has been terminal allowed the team to prosper; They won their last five games and finished sixth, sneaking into the UEFA Europa Conference League. And, although he did not have his nine-figure wife by his side, Caicedo looked more impressive than ever.
So why did this happen? And how will the new Enzo Maresca solve this problem?
Fernandez was ruled out for “pubalgia,” which is truly a sports hernia. He’d been dealing with this for a while, probably playing with the pain, and that must have been something that contributed to some of his below-average performances. So naturally, having a fully compatible central midfielder on the pitch in his position will have played a role in Chelsea’s progress, but that’s not the magnitude of it.
Fernandez’s first game of 2024 — the 6-0 win over Everton on April 15 — the night four-goal hero Cole Palmer raged, Everton goalkeeper Jordan Pickford lost his head and academy product Alfie Gilchrist scored the most poignant goal in history. .
He then returned to the team for the next match, which Chelsea lost 5–0 to Arsenal. It was a complicated night for everyone, but the Argentine player was discolored and retired after 67 minutes, the last time we saw him this season.
What followed, both in terms of spin and performances, was mind-boggling: a 2-2 draw at Aston Villa on April 27, which was probably a win, and then five outright wins in which 14 goals were scored and 4 conceded. Suddenly, Chelsea were at their best, with the likes of Marc Cucurella, Conor Gallagher and, most importantly, Caicedo in top no-nonsense form.
But Fernández lacks nothing incredibly surprising.
After only one win in the first six league games, Chelsea got off to a poor start and until mid-season were in a disappointing tenth position in the table. But at the start of 2024, coach Mauricio Pochettino opted for a 4-3-1 formation pairing Fernandez and Caicedo at the base of the midfield, then deployed Gallagher in front of them in an urgent role of number 10. Les Bleus made themselves harder to beat and didn’t lose much, but they still failed to win more than 50 percent of their games until Fernandez is absent.
After that, Pochettino made two critical adjustments that reshaped the team: Gallagher fell into the midfield pair next to Caicedo, and then the latter was given permission to move forward and carry the ball, instead of the former. When Caicedo burst onto the field, left-back Cucurella reverted in midfield and sat next to Gallagher, filling the created area.
Not only did it work, but it surely dominated.
The opposite functionality to Villa caught the attention of the public and, that particular night, Caicedo was second to none. He made five tackles, adding 4 in the offensive third; he just put Villa in his own third, kept them from erupting and created such constant tension that the hosts withered.
Caicedo, at full speed, seemed like the kind of revolutionary midfielder you pay £100m to sign for.
The Ecuadorian foreigner continued his momentum during the season, racking up tackles and interceptions at will: six against Tottenham, 4 against Forest, nine against AFC Bournemouth. It was loose all over the pitch, with Gallagher and Cucurella betting wisely on positional football. to cover their new competitive game.
Comparing Caicedo’s numbers during weeks 1 through 32 (largely with Fernandez) and 33 through 38 (largely without) paints a bleak picture. There’s a pretty significant buildup in the parameters in which he thrives: getting the ball back in any way possible.
On top of that, failed striker Nicolas Jackson has also found form in front of goal, Noni Madueke has moved to Chelsea’s right wing and even Mykhailo Mudryk (who has yet to fully honour his £80m investment) has woken up to the opposite. flank. . The team clicked and in large part thanks to a central midfielder who swept through the groups like a roaring tide.
All of this happened without Fernandez’s £105. 8 million, but obviously it can’t be broadcast. So how do they play with it?
The good thing about summer holidays is that they give clubs a chance to cool off. In Chelsea’s case, that means bringing in a new coach with other tastes and backgrounds.
Given the situation at Les Bleus towards the end of the season, it is debatable whether it is sensible to turn a new page, but perhaps this worrying incompatibility between Caicedo and Fernandez was at the heart of the ownership group’s brain when they let Pochettino go. .
What’s appealing about Maresca’s signing is the way the Italian organised his midfield at Leicester City last season, ahead of the league’s best and winning promotion: a 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 system with the ball has temporarily become a 3-2-4-1 form, similar to that of Manchester City under Pep Guardiola when John Stones pushed in midfield.
Maresca’s formula was different, pushing a full-back (usually Ricardo Pereira) into midfield alongside Harry Winks, who made a lot of passes (87. 7 per game) with a 94 per cent good luck rate. Up front, Wilfred Ndidi – for a long time he looked like an anchor midfielder: he has been thrown as a threat from box to box, which prevents him from combining defensive value (2. 0 tackles and mixed interceptions per game) with offensive contributions (four goals and five assists in 26 starts).
“Congratulations to the coach because he is here to help me understand the position,” Ndidi told the club’s online page about his new role with Maresca last September. “It’s a process. It’s going well, but I’m going to keep going. “. It’s very attractive because I check to get into the box more often. I have had it but it was necessary for Enzo to tell me that they had really given it to me. Try to push me.
Winks revealed in February that his role in the team “is to be that link between defense and attack. It’s about building through the lines and controlling the game. “And on his passing statistics, he admitted: “To get the statistics, for me personally, it’s wonderful to have that, it’s like a purpose and a help. I know it’s my job. “
Transferring this same formula to Chelsea is undeniable on paper: Fernández sits in midfield and sees the ball a lot; Caicedo advances down the field, remaining loose to influence the game up front; and Cucurella, Reece James or Malo Gusto move from full-back to inside to balance the midfield.
For Fernandez, it would be a return to the role he played in the early stages of his Chelsea career under Graham Potter. As the graph above shows, located just in front of the defense in a relatively static role, he sent progressive passes everywhere. , ranking in the 99th percentile among Premier League players in this metric. He saw the ball a lot and did a lot, even if he seemed a little frustrated at not being able to get into the box.
That role would be in the hands of Caicedo, who has spent the last six weeks doing so with aplomb, and could be further ahead if he plays the role of Ndidi (alarmingly for a defensive midfielder, the Nigerian foreigner found himself in the opponent’s half). where you can simply put the balls back into the box. )
There’s no guarantee Maresca will use the exact same formula at Stamford Bridge, but if he does, he could redefine and potentially bring out the best of Chelsea’s £205m duo. Maresca has a lot to solve once she takes office. Stamford Bridge, but making sure Fernandez and Caicedo are in unison is one of the most sensible tasks on their to-do list.