Enzo Maresca has midfield puzzle to solve while Chelsea sweat it out in US
Enzo Maresca sometimes gives the impression he would love nothing more than to name an entire team of midfielders. A conundrum facing Chelsea's head coach, though, is that he will struggle to find space in his starting XI for everyone next season.
Chelsea are not short of options in the middle. They have the £100m buys, Enzo Fernández and Moisés Caicedo, and the elegant, deep-lying Roméo Lavia. Yet starting them all in a midfield three is not easy if Cole Palmer plays as a No 10.
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Maresca has had to be creative at times. Chelsea are smoother when Lavia is conducting play. The issue is that squeezing the Belgian into the same side as Palmer and Fernández has often meant moving Caicedo out of the central areas and over to right-back, where the Ecuador international's ball-winning ability is not as pronounced and his lack of defensive nous can be exposed by better teams.
Related: 'Sorry, sorry, sorry': Jackson apologises for red card as Flamengo stun Chelsea
This is where Maresca has to prove his worth. The head coach looked for a workaround when Chelsea faced Flamengo in their second game at the Club World Cup last Friday, but the plan backfired in scorching conditions in Philadelphia. Palmer shifted to an inside-right role, Fernández played higher and, with Lavia's fitness still being managed, Maresca tried Reece James next to Caicedo in defensive midfield. He dispensed with his usual ploy of using at least one inverted full-back, instead instructing Marc Cucurella to hold his position on the left and Malo Gusto to perform a similar function on the right.
Fair enough, you might say, given the Club World Cup is sort of doubling as pre-season for Chelsea, who will have little time to prepare for the Premier League campaign if they reach the final next month. Still, it would have been better if the plan had worked. There has been no suggestion of Chelsea treating their time in the US as an inconvenience, so it was hardly encouraging to see them play so badly during their 3-1 defeat against Flamengo, which leaves them unable to win Group D and at risk of going out when they face Espérance in Philadelphia on Tuesday night.
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Supporters were particularly aggrieved about James's role given that he is a superior right-back to Gusto, who has been out of form for a while, and does not have an extensive history of playing in midfield. Thomas Tuchel, the England head coach and former Chelsea manager, is probably on to something when he says that James is more suited to playing on the right. Few full-backs deliver a better cross than the 25-year-old.
Meanwhile there is also the question of why Maresca opted for a right-back in the middle when he had four central midfielders – Lavia, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, Andrey Santos and Dário Essugo – on the bench.
Such competition for places can be interpreted in two ways. The first is that some individuals are bound to get frustrated with their lack of playing time. What if Willian Estêvão craves a central role rather than a spot on the flanks when he joins from Palmeiras? As for the here and now, fans are particularly worried about Santos not playing in either of Chelsea's first two games in the US. The 21-year-old Brazilian had an excellent season on loan at Strasbourg last season, with 10 goals and four assists for the Ligue 1 side, and he has been talked up a lot by key figures at Stamford Bridge.
Related: Chelsea make Gittens top target and keep Kudus and João Pedro in sights
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'Last season was amazing because it was my first season competing in Europe,' Santos said before the Flamengo game. 'I got made second captain and it was so important for me because I was [on loan] at Nottingham Forest, didn't play and then the year at Strasbourg was so important for me.'
It is to be hoped that Santos, who has been linked with Bayern Munich, is ready to be patient. Getting no minutes against Flamengo will be a disappointment given that the Brazil international played for their great rivals, Vasco da Gama, but it is important to maintain perspective. Santos is still a newcomer, after all, and will surely be given an opportunity to prove that he can compete with Fernández.
He needs to remember that Chelsea are about to embark on a campaign in which their stamina will be tested by playing in the Champions League. Similar applies to Essugo, who will hopefully lessen the reliance on Caicedo. The 20-year-old Portuguese has joined from Sporting Lisbon for £18.5m and is hopeful of making his mark. Comparisons with Caicedo are flattering but Essugo wants to be his own man.
'it is good when they compare you with a very big player,' Essugo says. 'But it is a mix of both because I want to try to go my way to reach the top. I am a defensive midfielder but I also like to go forward with the ball – box to box.'
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Essugo was 16 when he was handed his debut at Sporting by the 'demanding' Ruben Amorim. He looked up to João Palhinha, Manuel Ugarte and Morten Hjulmand. Essugo's hero was William Carvalho, who now plays for Real Betis.
There was competition for Essugo, who spent last season on loan at Las Palmas. Chelsea got there first. They have been accused of scattergun recruitment but surely this is evidence of planning. In a way they are emulating Brighton by picking up Santos and Essugo early. The price goes up if those talents join mid-table Premier League teams first. Chelsea discovered that when they bought Caicedo from Brighton for £115m. Perhaps they are benefiting from two of their leading recruitment figures, Sam Jewell and Paul Winstanley, previously working at Brighton.
There are plenty of pieces to the puzzle. Over to Maresca to make it look good.
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