Times couldn’t have been better for the fans with Chelsea tickets. Chelsea are in good form in this season under Enzo Maresca, winning in the Europa Conference League and playing a great blend of football.
While those with Chelsea tickets cheer their team along, the backroom staff still has a few problems to solve.
One of them is how they intend to manage their high-profile team, ensuring that all of the key players have roles that bring out the best in them.
One key question Maresca has to solve is the Enzo Fernandez Dilemma.
Enzo Fernandez – What Can Chelsea Do?
At the team’s heart, though, Maresca grapples with an inherited issue. How do you get the best out of Enzo Fernandez? The 23-year-old remains a Chelsea conundrum.
His stock could hardly have been higher at the time of his arrival from Benfica, soon after playing a key role in Argentina’s World Cup win. Nearly two years on, though, some fans are questioning whether the £106.8m record signing should even be starting.
Maresca, for his part, has displayed no such doubts, handing him the captain’s armband in Reece James’s absence only weeks after Fernandez was at the centre of a racism storm for singing a derogatory song about the French national team on Argentina’s team bus.
It was a big show of faith from Maresca, who defended the decision after Chelsea’s 2-0 loss to Manchester City on the opening day. Fernandez has captained Chelsea in every Premier League game he has been available this season.
Maresca, though, is using him differently from his predecessors. While Graham Potter and Mauricio Pochettino deployed Fernandez in a deep-lying role as part of a midfield pivot, the new Chelsea boss has pushed him forward, more like a left-sided No 8.
Fernandez is still asked to help Moises Caicedo, now established at No 6 defensively. But tucking right-back Malo Gusto into midfield has provided extra cover, with Maresca eager for Fernandez to use his vision and passing ability closer to the box to help break down defenses, albeit while providing the all-important “balance.”
“I think it’s very difficult how we play to find a midfielder that can attack like an attacking midfielder and defend like a holding midfielder,” Maresca said of Fernandez’s role last month.
“For instance, Arsenal use Declan Rice as an attacking midfielder on the ball and a holding midfielder when defending. Man City has done this in the past with Ilkay Gundogan.
“In our case, we are trying to find the balance and find the players who can give us this kind of solution. At the moment, Enzo is the only one.”
The worry, from all with Chelsea tickets, though, is that Fernandez’s on-ball influence has, in fact, been reduced by the positional change. A player at his best when orchestrating attacks is getting roughly 20 percent fewer touches and making 30 percent fewer passes than he was last season.
This would not be overly concerning if an increased offensive contribution offsets the drop in overall involvement. However, such an increase in productivity has yet to materialize.
In fact, despite playing further forward this season, Fernandez is making fewer passes that break the opposition’s backline than he did in the last campaign. His numbers are also down for shot-creating actions and passes into the box.
Understandably, critics and those with Chelsea tickets are wondering what exactly he is adding to the team right now, especially given the question marks still hanging over his defensive game.
Indeed, while Rice, mentioned by Maresca as being used in a similar role by Arsenal, excels off the ball, Fernandez is far less secure. Since his Premier League debut, only five players have been dribbled past on more occasions. His total of 86 is more than double Rice’s 40.
Maresca insisted last month that he was happy with how Fernandez is performing in his new role—”he is doing very good with us, and the idea is to continue with that”—but an unwanted pattern has emerged. Chelsea tends to fare better without him.
But it is troubling, nonetheless, that nearly two years from his £106.8m arrival, and even in the context of the team’s positive start to the season under their new head coach, Fernandez’s role and contribution are still subjects of debate.
End of Chilwell and Stamford Bridge?
When the January transfer window opens, England international left-back Ben Chilwell could be one of the first players out of the door at Stamford Bridge. The 27-year-old has endured a stop-start career with Chelsea, making just 70 appearances and scoring eight goals since joining in 2020.
The former Leicester City academy graduate penned a contract extension last year through to the summer of 2027. In doing so, Chilwell also bagged a pay rise to earn over £200,000 a week. With the glare of the Premier League on Chelsea’s finances regarding Financial Fair Play (FFP) intensifying, the Blues are said to be looking to offload high-earners who aren’t part of the club’s long-term future.
Earlier, before the start of the Maresca rule, everyone with Chelsea tickets assumed that Chilwell would have a role in his new side.
But with the new signs coming through and the game plan changing, they’ve found better, improved versions.
Chilwell was part of the so-called ‘bomb squad’ during Chelsea’s pre-season with new boss Enzo Maresca.
He trained apart from the first team with the likes of Trevoh Chalobah, Raheem Sterling, and Kepa Arrizabalaga, all of whom managed to secure loan moves away from West London. However, Chilwell remained and eventually got his name on Maresca’s 25-man Premier League squad to start the 2024/25 season.
Nevertheless, he remains on the periphery, despite Maresca stating that he “needed him” after being involved in a Carabao Cup victory over Barrow. The reality is that injuries have stunted Chilwell’s progress at Chelsea. The Blues have never really seen the best of him. A combination of knee and hamstring problems saw him make just 21 appearances across all competitions in 2023/24. Chelsea’s ambitious American ownership is unlikely to stand for retaining expensive, injury-prone players for too long.
