6 hours ago, Remodez said:

I think his passing in general is elite, especially passes in behind the defence, not just long passes.

I don't think his passes in behind the defence are elite. It's not consistent enough to call it elite. He pulls it off now and again, but if we are going to call it elite, it needs to be something we see regularly. There is nothing of Enzo's most positive traits that we see consistently.

5 hours ago, 19seventyone said:

^^^^^This^^^^^

His position became especially difficult when Palmer and Jackson decided to take the last 6 months off.

I’d almost given up on Enzo after consistently backing him. But he’s definitely improved these last 4 months. He’s one of the few who really seems to care.

Listen, he’s a World Cup winner who did well with the national team and Benfica. The quality is there just as it is with several others who many on here have completely written off.

It’s our manager. He’s is the problem. Who has he developed other than George? I’d argue most of our squad has regressed.

Maresca’s tactics are very convoluted and technical. For his system to work he has to get players in that suit the system. What he ends up with however is our SD’s buying the players on a high turnover with finance as the driver.

This is where our whole model as a club disintegrates. Our manager is incapable of playing a system to suit the squad he is given and our SD’s are incapable of signing players who suit the system.

I absolutely believe that if we had a more tactically flexible manager he’d have us winning many more games and be entertaining doing it.

Maresca out and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Edit to add.

The relationship between the Sporting director and the manager is probably the most important at a football club especially when the manager has little or no involvement in signings. Ours seem as though they’ve never met. Even if we accept that finance is the driver then Maresca is still the wrong manager. He shackles the natural abilities of all our attackers with his slow play. Most of our attackers look distinctly average under Maresca which won’t be doing their transfer values any good.

Fernandez has looked bang average under four different managers now across three seasons.

It isn't the manager in his case. It's the player.

Edited June 22, 20251 yr by Sexyfootball

3 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

I don't think his passes in behind the defence are elite. It's not consistent enough to call it elite. He pulls it off now and again, but if we are going to call it elite, it needs to be something we see regularly. There is nothing of Enzo's most positive traits that we see consistently.

I see your point but I would argue we are not set up for it to happen consistently. If we played fast counter attacking football it would happen more often.

People are getting over the top with the abuse simply because of favoritism. The whole team was sh*t, Jackson being the absolute worst.

What I’ll say is this, out of the Flamengo match, he was our 3rd best player. He’s the rich man’s version of Jorginho and the lower tier version of Vitinha. He doesn’t get the responsibility nor has taken the initiative of being the one who drives the gameplay. Managers have been using him like the spare man in the 2nd and 3rd phase of the pitch.

13 hours ago, Ukraine Bolt said:

Reminds me of Pogba at Utd. The entire team needs to be built around him to get even a semi-decent performance out of him. 6 league goals last season and somehow certain forum members think he's the next lord and saviour. Would be a steady option for rotation but for some reason the ownership think he should be our franchise player.

Can anyone tell me what he's actually elite at? He has good long range passing but he's too much of a liability to play in front of the defense.

He is basically Jorginho but playing slightly further up the pitch.

By that i mean if we are under possession and he has time and space he can undeniably pick out a good pass.

If put under pressure he is largely ineffectual and disappears from the game for extended periods offering little or nothing.

If the team as a whole is under pressure and on the back foot he is invisible.

He is very far from an elite player and a team should never be built round him.

1 hour ago, Deino said:

What I’ll say is this, out of the Flamengo match, he was our 3rd best player.

He doesn’t get the responsibility nor has taken the initiative of being the one who drives the gameplay. Managers have been using him like the spare man in the 2nd and 3rd phase of the pitch.

The two sites that rank players on observed criteria during the match had him 6th best (Whoscored) and 7th best (Sofascore) in the Flamengo game.

https://www.whoscored.com/matches/1873284/live/international-fifa-club-world-cup-2025-flamengo-chelsea

https://www.sofascore.com/football/match/flamengo-chelsea/NsGuc#id:13200225

Managers have been desperately trying to find him a role in the team that makes him the main man ever since the owners decided he was the franchise player. Stating the obvious, that he is not an elite player and is a long way off being the guy you build this team around, is criticism of the player, not "abuse". If you want to see "abuse" then that can be found in the Jackson thread !

Edited June 22, 20251 yr by Sexyfootball

1 hour ago, Sexyfootball said:

The two sites that rank players on observed criteria during the match had him 6th best (Whoscored) and 7th best (Sofascore) in the Flamengo game.

https://www.whoscored.com/matches/1873284/live/international-fifa-club-world-cup-2025-flamengo-chelsea

https://www.sofascore.com/football/match/flamengo-chelsea/NsGuc#id:13200225

Managers have been desperately trying to find him a role in the team that makes him the main man ever since the owners decided he was the franchise player. Stating the obvious, that he is not an elite player and is a long way off being the guy you build this team around, is criticism of the player, not "abuse". If you want to see "abuse" then that can be found in the Jackson thread !

Those sites also rated Colwill and Sanchez who didn't pickup the goalscorer and lousy Gkeeping as higher than they should be.

We've also had terrible managers since he's been here. Potter, Lamps 2.0, Poch and now Maresca. Talk to me about managers' tactics and formations when the ones managing the team is of the same pedigree as Mourinho, Ancelotti or Pep.

It's funny how you choose to want to defend Jackson when he's a major reason the team lost and how it's Enzo's that's bad when the goals conceded were from James' carelessness and Cucurella+Colwill not being able to track their man.

30 minutes ago, Deino said:

Those sites also rated Colwill and Sanchez who didn't pickup the goalscorer and lousy Gkeeping as higher than they should be.

We've also had terrible managers since he's been here. Potter, Lamps 2.0, Poch and now Maresca. Talk to me about managers' tactics and formations when the ones managing the team is of the same pedigree as Mourinho, Ancelotti or Pep.

It's funny how you choose to want to defend Jackson when he's a major reason the team lost and how it's Enzo's that's bad when the goals conceded were from James' carelessness and Cucurella+Colwill not being able to track their man.

I already said that the defenders were very lucky that Jackson did what he did to attract all the ire from the fanbase, as it masked the hopeless defending on all three goals - in the Jackson thread if you missed it :

Fans tend to remember better and focus more on the bad stuff in games, especially for unpopular players like Sanchez, and rarely dwell on anything that the players did right, which is what these ratings tend to catch. So that's probably why some of the players have better scores than you might expect. It isn't perfect of course, but better than anything else out there, and a good complement to the "eye" test "that can never be 100% relied on due to inherent bias. The data usually backs up the eye test, which is why the players at the top of the rankings are generally a good match to the accepted "best" players.

Last season in the top 5 leagues this was the top 10 ranked players :

Pretty good list I reckon. One or two surprises perhaps, and probably too many from the Bundesliga, but overall not bad.

Enzo Fernandez btw is ranked #162 in the top 5 leagues for last season. He's a long way off being the "elite" player that we should be building the club around. The only difference having an elite manager like Mourinho would make is that JM would bench him. And in any case even Poch already did that LOL, rightly preferring Gallagher, and look what happened to him (and Conor!) LOL. No, the owners have a lock on Enzo as star boy, and until that changes I guess we are stuck with him, and all managers will struggle to put him somewhere where he can "justify" the top billing the owners want for him.

I'm also not "defending" Jackson ?

I'd sell him tomorrow if it was up to me. But that doesn't mean he can't also simultaneously be our "best" striker option at the club, which he was last season. The owners and sporting directors have done the squad building that has "enabled" that, and I've been pretty vocal on here about how I feel about them LOL

If you want me to summarise where I stand on things, for avoidance of any doubt :

• I don't rate the owners

• I don't rate the sporting directors

• I don't rate the manager

• I don't rate Jackson, but understand why he was played as he was the best option we had last season

• I don't rate Fernandez (we had multiple better options to play as an advanced attacking midfielder)

5 hours ago, Deino said:

People are getting over the top with the abuse simply because of favoritism. The whole team was sh*t, Jackson being the absolute worst.

What I’ll say is this, out of the Flamengo match, he was our 3rd best player. He’s the rich man’s version of Jorginho and the lower tier version of Vitinha. He doesn’t get the responsibility nor has taken the initiative of being the one who drives the gameplay. Managers have been using him like the spare man in the 2nd and 3rd phase of the pitch.

favouritism to who?

1 hour ago, Deino said:

Those sites also rated Colwill and Sanchez who didn't pickup the goalscorer and lousy Gkeeping as higher than they should be.

We've also had terrible managers since he's been here. Potter, Lamps 2.0, Poch and now Maresca. Talk to me about managers' tactics and formations when the ones managing the team is of the same pedigree as Mourinho, Ancelotti or Pep.

It's funny how you choose to want to defend Jackson when he's a major reason the team lost and how it's Enzo's that's bad when the goals conceded were from James' carelessness and Cucurella+Colwill not being able to track their man.

Mourinho, Ancelotti or Pep wouldn't want Enzo. That's kind of the point.

In fact, i'd pay good money to see Enzo in a Mourinho team.

25 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

I already said that the defenders were very lucky that Jackson did what he did to attract all the ire from the fanbase, as it masked the hopeless defending on all three goals - in the Jackson thread if you missed it :

Fans tend to remember better and focus more on the bad stuff in games, especially for unpopular players like Sanchez, and rarely dwell on anything that the players did right, which is what these ratings tend to catch. So that's probably why some of the players have better scores than you might expect. It isn't perfect of course, but better than anything else out there, and a good complement to the "eye" test "that can never be 100% relied on due to inherent bias. The data usually backs up the eye test, which is why the players at the top of the rankings are generally a good match to the accepted "best" players.

Last season in the top 5 leagues this was the top 10 ranked players :

Pretty good list I reckon. One or two surprises perhaps, and probably too many from the Bundesliga, but overall not bad.

Enzo Fernandez btw is ranked #162 in the top 5 leagues for last season. He's a long way off being the "elite" player that we should be building the club around. The only difference having an elite manager like Mourinho would make is that JM would bench him. And in any case even Poch already did that LOL, rightly preferring Gallagher, and look what happened to him (and Conor!) LOL. No, the owners have a lock on Enzo as star boy, and until that changes I guess we are stuck with him, and all managers will struggle to put him somewhere where he can "justify" the top billing the owners want for him.

I'm also not "defending" Jackson ?

I'd sell him tomorrow if it was up to me. But that doesn't mean he can't also simultaneously be our "best" striker option at the club, which he was last season. The owners and sporting directors have done the squad building that has "enabled" that, and I've been pretty vocal on here about how I feel about them LOL

If you want me to summarise where I stand on things, for avoidance of any doubt :

• I don't rate the owners

• I don't rate the sporting directors

• I don't rate the manager

• I don't rate Jackson, but understand why he was played as he was the best option we had last season

• I don't rate Fernandez (we had multiple better options to play as an advanced attacking midfielder)

So you agree that the defenders should be rated below what the data suggests, right? Statistics and data are judged in volume. A player can do 99 things right at 0-0 but 1 mistake that leads to a 1-0 doesn't translate well into data. The most important stats have always been the very basic ones. Data science in sports isn't there yet, there're too many factors that influence sports that play with 22 people.

No idea why you dragged the owners into this. They have made poor decisions but it's clear to see the team isn't built around Enzo (which is a point you like to keep making). Then, you made the assumption that Mourinho would bench Enzo as if Mourinho also didn't bench KdB and Salah. Both sides of the coin are true but we shouldn't make assumptions until a real world class manager is in charge of the team, if that level of manager benched Enzo, fair play. Pochettino though is not a good measuring stick, he never won anything as a manager outside of PSG.

Let me summarize:

• Data is one thing but it's not accurate enough to judge a player

• The team isn't built around Enzo, don't know who put that idea out there.

• When a serial trophy winning manager that has won legitimate trophies actually start to bench Enzo, then I'll judge him accordingly. He's not the perfect midfielder but I'd take him who keeps pushing for the team and seems to take pride in being a Chelsea player.

6 minutes ago, Ukraine Bolt said:

Mourinho, Ancelotti or Pep wouldn't want Enzo. That's kind of the point.

In fact, i'd pay good money to see Enzo in a Mourinho team.

Based on what? Has any of these managers outright say they don't want Enzo on their team?

3 minutes ago, Deino said:

Based on what? Has any of these managers outright say they don't want Enzo on their team?

They're all allowed to big for him.

8 minutes ago, Ukraine Bolt said:

favouritism to who?

James, Cucurella, Colwill.

I'm their fan as well but it's clear some people choose to rag on Enzo when the goals came from carelessness from Reece, Colwill and Cucurella.

The 3 goals conceded in the backline isn't anything new, we've conceded the same type of goals before

https://www.reddit.com/r/chelseafc/comments/1lglp5p/how_to_score_against_chelsea/

Just now, Ukraine Bolt said:

They're all allowed to big for him.

What makes you think they wouldn't if they could? Obviously the length of the contract is a huge hinderance to any club. Ancelotti now manages Brazil so that's out of the question, JM is in Turkey so money's tight over there and Pep generally doesn't go for rival players until they're at the tail end of their contract like Kovacic.

https://www.statmuse.com/fc/ask/who-has-the-most-chances-created-from-open-play-in-the-premier-league-this-season

for the stats lovers out there

7 hours ago, Remodez said:

I see your point but I would argue we are not set up for it to happen consistently. If we played fast counter attacking football it would happen more often.

Pochettino's football was quicker and Enzo was at his worst under him. I just don't think Enzo is all that in all honesty. Not a bad player, but not a player worth building a team around either.

3 hours ago, Ukraine Bolt said:

Mourinho, Ancelotti or Pep wouldn't want Enzo. That's kind of the point.

In fact, i'd pay good money to see Enzo in a Mourinho team.

I think they'd all take him if they had the chance. In a Jose 4-3-3 I think Enzo would do pretty well in the Lampard role.

5 hours ago, Deino said:

James, Cucurella, Colwill.

I'm their fan as well but it's clear some people choose to rag on Enzo when the goals came from carelessness from Reece, Colwill and Cucurella.

The 3 goals conceded in the backline isn't anything new, we've conceded the same type of goals before

https://www.reddit.com/r/chelseafc/comments/1lglp5p/how_to_score_against_chelsea/

What do any of those players have to do with Enzo? Enzo was playing in the 10, i don't think anyone is blaming him for. the goals?

2 hours ago, timetowaste said:

I think they'd all take him if they had the chance. In a Jose 4-3-3 I think Enzo would do pretty well in the Lampard role.

pmsl

6 hours ago, Ukraine Bolt said:

Mourinho, Ancelotti or Pep wouldn't want Enzo. That's kind of the point.

In fact, i'd pay good money to see Enzo in a Mourinho team.

City were linked to him at the time so I’m not sure thats 100% true.

Just now, Remodez said:

City were linked to him at the time so I’m not sure thats 100% true.

Did they put a bid in or just lazy journo rumours to drum up interest by his agent?

6 minutes ago, Ukraine Bolt said:

Did they put a bid in or just lazy journo rumours to drum up interest by his agent?

I don’t remember if they put in a bid, I just remember one of their directors or whatever talking about it.

as much as people love to slate him, he is nowhere near as bad as some say.

• Our only midfielder who is remotely threatening to score a goal

• Our best , most progressive, passer of the ball

• a fighter who looks like he gives a sh*t - unlike many.

• Good on the ball - can control, can get his head up and can pass.

Can he improve? Yes. Is the system perfect for him? No.... but overall he is one of our lesser problems, and a player who many in the world would love (is he still linked to Madrid?)

I think Enzo is a very good player. I thought he could become a modric/kroos. It is just very strange that he become a box crasher.

Is this because PL football is more end to end, Enzo defensive liability or he just want play as box to box.