Maresca claims rising star “can play in five positions” as he prepares for biggest week at Chelsea yet | OneFootball

Chelsea’s defeat to Brighton on Saturday was pretty bleak and depressing.

It followed the pattern of so many games in recent years – the Blues dominated the ball early and scored, yet lacked the nous and the confidence to see the game out. Trevoh Chalobah got a red card, the team sat deep, and the Seagulls ended up scoring 3 in the final 25 minutes to win comfortable.

Another mental collapse, another 3 points dropped.

Maresca happy to praise bright spark from defeat

Estevao Willian takes on Mitoma. (Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images)

There was one positive from the game though – young winger Estevao Willian got a start and really impressed. He was robbed of minutes a week earlier against Manchester United when he was subbed off following the red card to Robert Sanchez early on, so it was nice to see him with a chance to make up for that.

He was actually Chelsea’s brightest attacking spark in his time on the pitch, fearlessly taking on his man time and again. He made some bad decisions with the final ball at times, but still did more than his fair share to break down the opposition:

“I still think the same [about Estevao as before]. He is doing very well. It’s not easy for 17/18 year old to arrive here in Europe with a big club like Chelsea and show immediately the quality he has. He is a very good boy and he is happy. He can play in the five attacking positions.”

Versatile Estevao should get many more minutes this week

That versatility that Maresca mentions at the end there should serve the Brazilian well. We saw him swapping wings with Pedro Neto on Saturday, and we’re sure we will also see him used as a number 10 for these games where Cole Palmer is missing.

If we want to get anything from our games against Benfica and Liverpool this week, Estevao is going to have to perform.