Caughtoffside today have their exclusive column from insider Ben Jacobs, and as always he’s full of good information on what’s going on behind closed doors at Chelsea.
The big news in the last week has been the removal and replacement of Mauricio Pochettino. A week ago we were just finding out the shocking news, and 7 days later we’re on the verge of getting his replacement confirmed.
Enzo Maresca will be the man stepping up from a Championship winning season with Leicester to manage the Blues, after apparently wow-ing our sporting directors with his knowledge of the squad.
But how do those players feel about him? Jacobs has the scoop:
“Enzo Maresca is on the brink of becoming Chelsea’s new head coach. He is expected to sign a minimum five-year guaranteed contract. Compensation is being finalised with Leicester in the region of £8-10m,” Jacobs wrote in his column.
“Although it’s true several players were disappointed to see Mauricio Pochettino leave, there is already excitement at what Maresca can bring. Chelsea’s players believe momentum is on their side and Maresca’s favoured 4-3-3 should favour the squad he inherits.”
The winners and losers of the move
While people are already obsessing over the likely formation and players that Maresca will favour at Chelsea, it’s very hard to predict how things will work until we know a little more about the squad’s makeup next season.
The big losers could potentially be Trevoh Chalobah and Conor Gallagher. They proved to be favourites of Pochettino’s and were probably going to be protected from a sale by that. Maresca will have been told in no uncertain terms not to count on them if the plan is to let them go.
Meanwhile stars like Noni Madueke who felt like they were really making progress and had a deep and growing bond with Pochettino will worry that all that work will be wasted as they’re back to square one with the new man.
Apparently SuperFrank (and a great many other Chelsea supporters) is so enamoured of Gallagher’s homegrown status (not to mention the gusto with which he presses) that they can’t see the sad truth—he’s not technical enough to play the “Pep ball” Maresca is likely to bring to Stamford Bridge. Watch the game film. He’s wonderful at winning balls back, but he’s no Rodri in possession and his limitations will be exposed in a system that demands he constantly operate in “half-spaces.”
I like Conor Gallagher, but it’s important not to let our affection for a player cloud our judgment of what he is and isn’t. Conor Gallagher is many things, but can any of us see him starting in squads like City and Arsenal—sides that play highly technical, possession-based football? Maybe he’d see a game when the squad required rotation, but he’d never earn the minutes he enjoyed this past year—not in a million years.
So does it make sense to keep someone who might fetch €40m on the open market as a squad player? Not if you ask me.