New arrival picked as potential “player of the tournament” for Chelsea | OneFootball

The London is Blue podcast are in Atalanta right now getting ready to watch Chelsea kick off at the Club World Cup, and they picked out two new players they’re really excited to see in Blue in the coming weeks.

Santos (and Essugo) picked as ones to watch by podcast fans

Presenter Nick Verlaney had one player on his mind above all others:

“Andrey Santos. He is going to do really well… I just look at him, he’s coming off this great season,” Verlaney said.

“I think he’s going to be our player of the tournament, I think he’s really going to step up. And he’s going to need to, right. With the balance of resting your players, you’re not going to be able to get away with playing Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo, obviously Romeo Lavia hasn’t shown himself fit enough to take over one of their spots alone.

“Watching the midfield in this tournament is going to be fascinating, I’m super excited to see what Andrey Santos does and what Dario Essugo does.”

You can see their thoughts in the clip embedded here:

Chelsea’s 2 new boys will be thrown right into the mix

We totally agree, and we agree with their logic too. Caicedo and Fernandez were among the most used players last season, AND they’ve just been playing international games. The management team will be looking to play them as little as possible, especially in the group stages, and that means the likes of Santos and Essugo stepping up right from the jump.

Starting against LAFC is a nice introduction, Flamengo should be a little tougher, but then Tunis to close out the group is another soft one.

Ideally we can make it to the knockout stage with a minimum of minutes played for our first choice central midfielders.