Chelsea news: Enzo Maresca’s five selection headaches that expose the Blues’ chaos

In the space of just under a week, Chelsea have been knocked out of the FA Cup and overtaken in the race for Champions League qualification, dropping to sixth in the Premier League table.

As a result of back-to-back defeats to Brighton - the latter a humiliating 3-0 demolition - pressure has begun to mount on head coach Enzo Maresca, whose young side has won just two of their last nine league games.

Despite Chelsea’s spending reaching over £1.5 billion since 2022, key areas of weakness remain in the squad, and yet another messy transfer window in January has given the Italian more problems than solutions.

Sports News Blitz’s resident Chelsea writer Henry Eccles takes a look at how questionable squad planning and recruitment under Sporting Directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart has left Maresca in such a difficult position for a crucial second half of the season.

The Sporting Directors’ January striker gamble has massively backfired

In January, everyone knew Chelsea needed a new senior striker, and while high-quality options are notoriously hard to find in the winter window, anyone half decent to take the burden off starting striker Nicolas Jackson would have been a smart move.

But now, following injuries to both Jackson and Marc Guiu, Maresca has been left with Christopher Nkunku and Cole Palmer as the only recognised options to lead Chelsea’s forward line.

The Blues coach experimented with the duo in the two defeats against Brighton, as both interchanged between the No.9 and No.10 positions.

It is safe to say that the experiment failed.

Across 180 minutes against the Seagulls, Chelsea mustered just one shot on target - their single goal came as a result of a Bart Verbruggen own goal in the 2-1 cup defeat.

During the second encounter in the Premier League, Palmer cut a particularly frustrated figure, constantly let down by a lack of quality around him.

Nkunku, meanwhile, was anonymous on both occasions, you genuinely forgot he was on the pitch at times.

After such a poor attacking display, Maresca has to do something different, but with the loan departures of Joao Felix and Carney Chukwuemeka, and injuries to Guiu and Jackson, he is not exactly spoilt for choice anymore.

With Jackson out until April, poor squad planning under Winstanley and Stewart has finally caught up with the Blues - who now face a long and painful spell relying upon what already seems like a dysfunctional attacking pairing.

Madueke injury leaves Chelsea short on the wings

After just 19 minutes last time out against Brighton, winger Noni Madueke was forced to come off with a hamstring injury.

After the match, Maresca claimed the England international would be ‘out for a while,’ leaving him with just Pedro Neto and Jadon Sancho as the senior wingers currently available.

A reminder that Mykhailo Mudryk is still indefinitely suspended following a positive doping test, and is awaiting the return of test results of a second sample.

The only other option Maresca has is 19-year-old Tyrique George, who did impress in a brief cameo against Brighton on Friday night.

The academy graduate certainly gave Brighton right-back Tariq Lamptey more of a test than Neto, who failed to complete seven of the eight dribble attempts he made across the two defeats.

In terms of productivity, the Portuguese’s numbers don’t make for great reading either, with just four goal involvements in 22 Premier League appearances this season.

Sancho, meanwhile, has also hit a rut, failing to be involved in a goal since his assist against Crystal Palace on January 4.

Judging by their January window activity, it appeared that the Blues’ Sporting Directors knew they needed a winger with more goal-scoring threat.

Chelsea were reportedly looking at the likes of Alejandro Garnacho, Jamie Gittens and Mathys Tel to bolster their attacking options, but nothing came of their interest in the end.

The latter, in fact, chose to join Tottenham on deadline day, despite Chelsea’s January-long pursuit of the Bayern Munich forward.

In a system of play that relies so much on the quality of its wingers, it is again down to poor squad planning and recruitment that Chelsea now find themselves short of both quality and numbers on the flanks.

The lack of a coherent plan here is only made more frustrating when you see Callum Hudson-Odoi, who Chelsea let go in September 2023, performing so well at high-flying Nottingham Forest.

According to FBref, the former Cobham star has made more shot and goal-creating actions (73 and 10 respectively) than any other Chelsea winger this season.

There is an argument to be made, then, that if there was an actual project at the club, more faith should have been shown in one of their own with so much left to give, rather than splashing the cash on the likes of the profligate Sancho and Neto.

READ MORE: Chelsea’s striker gamble backfires as Nicolas Jackson’s injury exposes attacking crisis

Chelsea’s £205m midfield is somehow still incomplete

Yet again, Maresca has few options here.

Thanks to Romeo Lavia’s current injury, the Blues coach has had to over-rely on Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo in midfield for most of the season.

In Lavia’s absence, the two midfielders signed for a combined £205m have performed reasonably well, as you would hope for such a staggering amount of money.

Prior to the Brighton game on February 14, no midfielder in the Premier League had created more chances from open play than Fernandez (36), according to WhoScored.

Caicedo, meanwhile, is only behind Everton’s Idrissa Gueye for combined interceptions and tackles by a midfielder in the league this season (107).

And yet, Chelsea still lack something in that midfield pivot.

Maresca wants to implement a Manchester City-like possession-based system, but his squad currently lacks the vital tool: their Rodri.

Having been brought through City’s academy (under Maresca), Lavia is the best stylistic fit for that role - his ball retention under pressure, passing range and defensive ability are his main strengths as a holding midfielder.

But sadly, availability is a huge issue for the young Belgian star.

In the entirety of last season, an injury-prone Lavia made just one 32-minute appearance for Chelsea in a Premier League match against Crystal Palace.

This season has not been much better, the former Southampton midfielder has already missed 12 league games due to injury.

That means the only other senior option in Chelsea’s midfield is Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall.

But as a more box-to-box midfielder, he has looked more and more like a PSR favour to Leicester City than an actual contender for a midfield place since signing from the Foxes in the summer.

In January, it was clear that a strong midfield addition was needed, and the Sporting Directors went to work.

The sum of their efforts? The £12m signing of 19-year-old Mathis Amougou from St Etienne.

A talented prospect, apparently, but immediately signalled by Maresca to be more for the future rather than helping Chelsea in the here and now.

Chelsea were never going to get a Rodri in January, but the Sporting Directors have again left a key position frighteningly bare in terms of versatility and experience.

What is more frustrating is that the Blues have two very capable midfielders on loan: Southampton’s Lesely Ugochukwu and Strasbourg’s Andrey Santos.

Despite a slow start at Southampton, Ugochukwu has put a string of good performances together in recent weeks, most notably at Old Trafford against Manchester United.

In 83 minutes, the former Rennes youngster had a 90% pass accuracy, made three blocks and won six out of his seven ground duels.

Over at Strasbourg, Chelsea’s ‘sister club,’ Andrey Santos has been a sensation.

The Brazilian has made more tackles than anyone else in Ligue 1 this season (51) while notching an impressive seven goals in midfield.

Neither Ugochukwu nor Santos is a Rodri, no one is, but both could have bolstered Chelsea’s midfield until at least the summer.

There is also an argument to be made that Chelsea are missing both the grit and versatility of Conor Gallagher, who they sold in the summer to Atletico Madrid to balance the books.

The England international was beginning to form a very effective partnership with Caicedo towards the end of last season, starring together in the midfield pivot for 5-0 and 6-0 wins against West Ham and Everton respectively.

It is this lack of foresight and shoddy recruitment that has left Chelsea with essentially just Caicedo and Fernandez to rely upon for the foreseeable future - a decent pairing, but not one that optimises the squad for Maresca’s style of play.

Bizarre decisions in defence have left Colwill out to dry

In the post-match chatter following the 3-0 defeat at Brighton, a lot of the criticism for the third goal was rightfully levelled at Sancho and Marc Cucurella.

The left-sided duo were caught ball-watching by the Seagulls and allowed Yankuba Minteh to storm into the box to score his second.

What was actually more worrying, though, was what happened to Levi Colwill.

The academy star was the one to cheaply give the ball away to Brighton after falling to the ground with little to no contact, and instead of charging back into position, he took his time to let referee Chris Kavanagh know what he thought of the decision to play on.

Colwill then proceeded to saunter back into the box, only to watch Minteh score Brighton’s third.

The poor display comes after another cheap giveaway that led to West Ham’s opener at Stamford Bridge on February 3.

Over the last few weeks, the young defender has indeed looked shaky, but if he needed a break, Chelsea’s poorly constructed squad means he’s unlikely to get one.

After Renato Veiga’s loan move to Juventus in January, Colwill is the only naturally left-sided centre-back in Maresca’s squad, another vital role for how the Italian wants to play.

Veiga’s departure is bizarre. The Portuguese defender was only just signed from Basel in the summer to be Chelsea’s ‘Swiss Army knife’ for £12 million.

Even more embarrassing for Chelsea’s directorship, is that Veiga has already become a key player in the Old Lady’s defence.

The 21-year-old’s stellar performances, most recently in the Derby d’Italia against Inter Milan, have led head coach Thiago Motta to labelling Veiga il nuovo muro, ‘the new wall.’

Chelsea did recall Trevoh Chalobah from his loan at Crystal Palace, but only to replace the right-sided Axel Disasi after his loan move to Aston Villa.

Six months ago, it was Chalobah who was frozen out of the squad and discarded, essentially as a result of Disasi’s signing from Monaco in 2023, another high-profile embarrassment for Winstanley and Stewart.

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£1.5 billion spent and Chelsea still lack a top goalkeeper

Where to begin with this one?

While we were all mesmerised by Kaoru Mitoma’s stunning touch to control Verbruggen’s long ball and open the scoring on Friday night, it slowly dawned on viewers that Chelsea keeper Filip Jorgensen really should have had the shot covered.

Mitoma’s effort was not struck into the bottom right corner with particular venom or precision, and yet it went past Jorgensen’s stretching arm.

It was a shot that perhaps even fellow struggling keeper Robert Sanchez could have dealt with.

The Spaniard was dropped to make way for Jorgensen against West Ham after a calamitous performance against Man City.

In that game, Sanchez rushed out of his goal with Erling Haaland charging down Chelsea’s left flank and immediately regretted his decision - the beached keeper was lobbed by the Norwegian striker - as City took the lead and never looked back.

Since being integrated into the starting XI, Jorgensen has looked just as nervy with the ball at his feet as Sanchez, and as a shot-stopper, both are good but not great.

After spending over £1.5 billion on assembling the squad with the aim of securing Champions League football, it is simply unthinkable to have such average goalkeepers as the main starting options.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, Chelsea again arguably have better options within their multi-club system.

For Strasbourg, Djorde Petrovic has been performing brilliantly since his loan move in the summer.

Prior to Ligue 1’s most recent matchday, the Croatian keeper had prevented the most goals per 90 in Ligue 1 (0.225), according to DataMB.

Also, despite Sanchez being preferred due to his distribution skills, no Top 7 league keeper has completed more passes per match than Petrovic this season (36.3).

For Winstanley and Stewart, who pride themselves on the use of data and the style of play they want to see at Chelsea, that is yet more damning reading.

While Petrovic is unlikely to be Chelsea’s answer in the goalkeeping position, his strong performances in France while the Blues’ current options flounder, raise further questions on the level of recruitment and decision-making at the club.

Summary

Chelsea still have a decent chance of Champions League qualification, and silverware through the Europa Conference League.

The last thing the club needs is more negative noise around the transfer policy and general direction the club is headed.

But when so much money has been spent, and yet so little has actually been done to improve the team, it comes as no surprise that patience is wearing thin with the key decision-makers at the club.

For their sake, and his own, Maresca will hope to get the season back on track as soon as possible, but next up is a tough trip to the Midlands to face Unai Emery’s Aston Villa on Saturday, February 22.

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