Lavia, Caicedo and “fantastic” Enzo with Madueke dropped could be the future – but not in Chelsea’s next game | OneFootball

Football fans are a fickle bunch.

With Enzo Fernandez struggling for form, so many Chelsea fans were demanding a midfield partnership of Moises Caicedo and Romeo Lavia. And indeed that combination worked well in our games against top sides.

Enzo Maresca outlined exactly why he liked pairing them up:

“First of all, it’s a matter of balance. In this moment, Romeo and Moi give us physicality and strength in the middle. This is the reason why we found the option with Malo [Gusto] in the pocket.”

Fans backed him – they were tired of a rather lost looking Fernandez not having a natural role.

But after a couple of games without Fernandez, now some are claiming the team needs him back and doesn’t create enough without him. Funnily enough, it was Maresca who hailed Fernandez’s impact as a sub on Sunday:

“Enzo [Fernandez] was ready to play from the start but we decided not to for a tactical reason but then he was excellent.”

The debate rages on. Some claim that Chelsea just don’t have the quality and creativity without Enzo in the team, others claim that they’re too easy to play through when the Argentine is used centrally.

Lavia also doesn’t seem to offer as much defensively as some hoped – although there’s no doubting he covers more ground at a higher speed than Fernandez.

Moises Caicedo and Enzo Fernandez on the pitch.

Maresca has international break homework to do

This is a classic conundrum for Maresca to work on during this international break. He won’t have those players with him, but he can take a look back at a decent body of evidence now which shows his team with an Enzo-Caicedo pivot and a Caicedo-Lavia pivot and see what’s working and what’s not.

Of course one solution is to use all 3, but that would mean moving Cole Palmer to the right wing and dropping Noni Madueke. We expect to see it at some point, but not after an international break where both Enzo and Caicedo will be playing in South America and will return to Cobham late.