Jamie Carragher has revealed why he believes Enzo Maresca was right to call out Reece James for a lack of leadership.
Speaking before Sunday’s win against Newcastle Maresca said that he expected more from James in terms of leadership, and believed the Blues lacked any proper leaders in the squad.
James was named captain by Mauricio Pochettino last season, but didn’t lead the team on the pitch much due to injury issues, which limited him to just 11 appearances in all competitions.
Carragher believes Maresca was right to question James
James made his long anticipated return to action in the recent defeat to Liverpool and started the win against Newcastle, putting in a good performance despite surprisingly playing the majority of the game at left back.
Maresca has spoken of the importance of James and how one solution to keep him fit might be to initially play him just once a week.
The Italian’s comments on James’ lack of leadership sparked debate and Carragher believes the goal Chelsea conceded against Newcastle very much proved Maresca’s point.
“I can imagine [Enzo] Maresca looking at that and saying, “That’s what I mean by Reece James”,’ Carragher said on The Overlap Fan Debate.
“He didn’t scream, he didn’t shout, we know he’s a brilliant player, but he’s [Enzo] probably gone into that club thinking, “I don’t know too much about him, I’ve heard about him, I’ve heard he’s a great player.”
James doesn’t outwardly appear to be a vocal captain and can often come across as quite quiet, although there are certainly different ways to be a captain.
Maresca’s comments will no doubt be a wake up call for James that he must do better and improve on that side, but he’s still relatively young and is certainly inexperienced when it comes to being a captain.
James said last season he often relied on Thiago Silva for help and Chelsea don’t have that kind of figure at the club anymore and will have to hope they can develop leaders from within their squad.
