Enzo and Estevao out: Maresca could turn to 3rd most creative player to help Chelsea’s problem against Forest | OneFootball

A look at Chelsea’s attacking stats for the season shows a potential problem for the weeks ahead.

The easiest way to summarise a player’s attacking impact is to look at their expected goals and expected assists (the quality of shots they take and the quality of the chances they create), then remove penalties and divide that by the number of minutes they’ve played

By that metric, there’s a leader way out ahead of the rest – Estevao Willian.

Estevao’s superb stats can’t be sustained with starts

Estevao scores against Liverpool. (Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images)

Of course that’s conditioned by the fact he’s played just 264 minutes. As in the Liverpool game last week, he’s generally been coming on as a sub in broken games where he’s there to make an impact without defending. Bu even taking that into account, those numbers are absurd.

After his 0.96 non penalty expected goals plus assists, the player in second half has just half as much. Enzo Fernandez is having a good season in terms of productivity, but even he is on just 0.55.

Next is Cole Palmer and Facundo Buonanotte on 0.51.

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So what’s the problem?

Well Estevao is 18 and we’re trying to introduce him to the Premier League slowly. Enzo Maresca would rather not start him every game. Then there’s Palmer who is injured, and Enzo Fernandez who is playing with Argentina in this break and will arrive back in the UK knackered, just 48 hours before our Premier League game. We’re sure that Maresca would prefer to leave him on the bench for that one.

Could Buonanotte be the one who takes up the creative reins in our next match? We’ve already predicted he will start that Nottingham Forest game, and this evidence just seems to make it more likely.

Over time, Palmer’s return and Estevao’s continued adaptation, as well as more contributions from Joao Pedro and Liam Delap should ease the burden on Enzo.