Christopher Nkunku’s injury will keep him out until Christmas, and is terrible news for Chelsea. There are some players who will benefit though, and chief among those is Carney Chuwuemeka.
The midfielder has been bumped up the pecking order and started our opening game of the season yesterday, playing in the most advanced role of a midfield group.
He did a great job linking Nicolas Jackson with the rest of the team, and rather than playing it safe, was happy to take risks to drive the ball and his team up the pitch.
This video picked out 5 times that Chukwuemeka either carried the ball or passed it from the midfield third into the final third, in less than an hour:
https://twitter.com/centreac7/status/1690873805529292800
As you can see, he’s not always the smoothest on the ball, but he’s got great physicality and a nice weight of pass to play in teammates even when he’s under a lot of pressure. The arrival of another midfielder will limit his game time a little, but until Nkunku is back, you can expect Chukwuemeka to be featuring regularly behind the striker – and hopefully keeping up this impressive work.
He deserves the chance. A very good player with lots of confidence going forward with the ball. He’s also a very good team player.