Chelsea player 7th in the world in dangerous stat – Blues need a solution now | OneFootball

If you looked at Chelsea’s rotated team to face Cardiff last night, even in a rotated team there was one very conspicuous absence – Marc Cucurella was not in the squad, which is not something Blues fans are used to.

That broke a run of 11 consecutive FULL matches for club and country played by the Spaniard leading up to last night. In case you didn’t know, he only missed out because of suspension.

Machine Cucurella at serious risk as marathon year goes on

Marc Cucurella plays 7th most minutes of outfielders.

As Nizaaar Kinsella of the BBC points out, these numbers are phenomenal.

The left back has played 5615 minutes between Spain and Chelsea game in the last 365 days.

He’s seventh on the CIES Football Observatory’s list of outfield players with the most minutes. The only European based players above him on the list are Hans Vanaken of Club Brugge, Nicolas Otamendi of Benfica, Brandon Mechele (also of Brugges) and Vitinha of PSG.

It’s lucky he’s not broken down already – although perhaps that’s the only way he will get a rest. Enzo Maresca simply doesn’t trust Jorrel Hato against anyone above League One opposition. So Cucurella is going to play twice a week for almost the rest of the season.

Then he’ll be off to the World Cup to start for Spain. One wonders how his body will cope. It’s hard to see anyone else topping this list by this time next year if he somehow stays injury free.

In other news…

One first team player who was left in the mix was Moises Caicedo, who formed a fearsome combination with Andrey Santos ahead of the back line which kept Cardiff locked out.

Pedro Neto pointed out that this trophy means a lot to Chelsea this season, and we reckon that’s especially true because of one major dressing room factor.