“Trash” Joao Pedro and his “terrible hold up play” won’t last 3 years at Chelsea claims pundit | OneFootball

Joao Pedro promised so much after arriving in the summer and looking great in the Club World Cup, but has struggled since.

He hasn’t added the ruthless finishing that Nicolas Jackson lacks, but even worse he doesn’t offer anything like the same off the ball work or link up play as the Senegal star.

Joao Pedro won’t last 3 years at Chelsea claims pundits

Joao Pedro protests a decision against Arsenal. (Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)

“I’ll be very interested to see if Joao Pedro is at Chelsea in three years time,” a pundit said on the London is Blue podcast this week.

The off the ball work being trash. I thought his hold up play was terrible. There were some actions where I was like ‘either release it, or position your body better to hold it up.’

“If you’re going to be a true 9 fine, score loads of goals and get loads of assists. But for me, he’s never going to be that.”

It’s very harsh given we have seen plenty of promising signs, but we can see where he’s coming from. JP has played a lot now and doesn’t seem to be improving.

“Nico was amazing at that. I think where we had huge questions was the consistency of the finishing and the taking the chances. But Nico did all the hard dirty work consistently,” presenter Nick Verlaney agreed.

You can see their discussion in the clip embedded here:

https://x.com/LondonBluePod/status/2000955089184546955

In other news…

A lot of fans weren’t keen on the idea of signing Alejandro Garnacho in the summer, but they’re coming around to it now that he’s playing well and scoring goals.

Marc Cucurella has been brutally run into the ground by a punishing schedule for Chelsea and Italy, and the stats are out now which show just how crazy his run has been.