Former Premier League striker Troy Deeney believes the difficulty facing Reece James as captain is he’s always going to be compared to John Terry.
James was named club captain by Mauricio Pochettino at the start of last season, but injury issues meant he only featured 11 times in all competitions, with the now departed Conor Gallagher leading the side in his absence.
With James only returning to action in last month’s defeat at Liverpool, Enzo Fernandez has captained the side on occasions this season.
Deeney on James as Chelsea captain
From the outside looking in James doesn’t appear to be a vocal captain and seems to come across as quite shy, although there are many different ways to be a leader.
Enzo Maresca recently called out James for a lack of leadership and said he expected more from the 24-year-old in that department.
Deeney himself is a former captain and backed Maresca’s call for the England international to give more, whilst he revealed what he feels the biggest problem facing James is.
“Absolutely fair, that is the role and responsibility of any captain, especially in a Premier League club, and especially at a club the size of Chelsea,” he told talkSPORT as cited on X.com.
“The difficulty for Reece is you’re always going to be compared to John Terry, who was captain fantastic.”
A lack of leaders is something that is often thrown at Chelsea’s young squad, and James himself admitted he often asked Thiago Silva for advice last season.
With Silva now gone the Blues don’t have that senior figure in the dressing room and are relying on existing members of the squad to grow into leadership roles.
Whilst there are signs the likes of Levi Colwill are growing into that role, you feel the Blues could do with signing a leader to help out their young squad, especially at the back as they haven’t properly replaced Silva, a decision William Gallas can’t understand.