There’s plenty of Chelsea players you can put on the chopping block this season when talking about individuals that have unperformed. In particular, BBC pundit Nigel Reo-Coker has just taken a swipe at two Blues stars struggling right now.
It’s been a turbulent campaign so far for Blues head coach Mauricio Pochettino, who’s watching his side go from superb to shocking on a game-to-game basis.
Chelsea may have beaten Manchester United in a thriller last week, but that was sandwiched in-between two very poor draws against both Sheffield United and Burnley in the Premier League.
Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo criticised
Nigel Reo-Coker, the former West Ham player, has now criticised the form of Chelsea’s Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo.
They are the main central midfield pairing for the Blues that starts almost every game together, but this first season as a partnership is proving to be a bit of a struggle.
“You look at the likes of Enzo Fernandez and [Moises] Caicedo in that midfield pairing. You would have thought they would have been a formidable force. For me still, I don’t see a relationship in two players who know how to play with each other or really look like they want to play each other,” Reo-Coker told BBC Radio 5 Live.
What Graeme Souness said about Chelsea’s midfielders recently
It’s not the first time that the duo of Fernandez and Caicedo have been under the spotlight this season for the wrong reasons.
Speaking only a couple of weeks ago, Graeme Souness ripped into the South American duo by insisting they must improve.
“Enzo Fernandez, Caicedo, they are not showing £100 million player qualities right now. They have to improve,” Souness told talkSPORT.
“They will be hoping that this is a learning year and after this – well, not so much for Caicedo or Fernandez, because this is his second year and Caicedo knows about the Premier League. I was trying to cut them some slack there but they have to up their games.”
Romeo Lavia absence has been so pivotal
Chelsea’s Romeo Lavia has only played one game all season during a debut year to forget, but we think his injury absence has impacted the squad on multiple fronts.
It’s been frustrating not to have the talented Belgian midfielder available for pretty much the whole campaign. On top of that, Lavia’s absence has significantly increased the pressure and workload on the Fernandez-Caicedo pivot to play constantly.
We think Fernandez and Caicedo would’ve benefited a lot from a bit of light rotation.