Pochettino reviews Chelsea's defeat at Everton
Chelsea’s owners are reportedly in agreement with Ian Wright that Moises Caicedo and Enzo Fernandez have underperformed this season. The duo cost Chelsea a combined £221.8million and walked through the door at Stamford Bridge with the loftiest of expectations.
Fernandez was signed from Benfica in January for £106.8m while Todd Boehly forked out £115m to snap up Caicedo from Brighton over the summer. Both players broke the Premier League transfer record but the Blues are yet to get the best out of either of them – a fact Chelsea executives are all too aware of.
According to Simon Phillips’ Substack, Chelsea’s owners have been left dumbfounded by Caicedo and Fernandez’s form in west London. However, there is a widespread belief that they will come good eventually.
The midfielders came under immense scrutiny for poor displays during recent defeats to Manchester United and Everton that have seen the Blues slip down into the bottom half of the Premier League table.
Last time out against the Toffees the money-spinning duo were outplayed in the centre of the park by two players valued at a fraction of the price – Idrissa Gueye and James Garner. Wright was less than impressed by their performances and put them on blast after the game.
“The fact is Pochettino and Chelsea, for me, are playing worse than [Manchester] United, and I’m not saying that disrespectfully,” said Wright. “When you look at them, their organisation and the way they’re playing. You’ve got two midfielders in there [Fernandez and Caicedo], £200million worth of midfielders that are being walked through. What is going on?”
Even Blues boss Mauricio Pochettino admits that their partnership needs some work. “The relationship between them needs to improve of course, between them and individually also,” he said. “They are young, the expectation is massive when you arrive.
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“Caicedo had one season in Brighton and Enzo after three months in Europe, he was in Benfica before arriving to the Premier League. Arriving not in the best place to perform quick because they need to be part of the solution.
“They are not the cherry of the cake. When you arrive in a team that is in a building process and you’re young with not too much experience, even if you have good quality and people can see the club paid big money and only for that you need to perform, it is not like this in football.
“Some people think in this way because they don’t know about football. It’s a process. It’s going to be a process for different reasons. Chelsea are in a completely different reality in the last years and we need to attack this. We can’t live only thinking in the past. We need to keep the culture and understand we are in Chelsea and always it’s about winning, but the reality is completely different.”
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