Enzo Maresca had to frequently remind Cesare Casadei to do one thing during Tuesday night’s win against Barrow in the Carabao Cup.
Maresca made 11 changes to the side that beat West Ham with a number of squad and fringe players given an opportunity to get minutes and make an impression.
Casadei, who has hasn’t featured much for Chelsea since he joined from Inter Milan in 2022 was handed a start in midfield alongside Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall.
Casadei did a good job agaisnt Barrow
The 21-year-old played the full 90 minutes against the League Two leaders and put in a decent performance in the middle of the park.
Casadei was deployed in a deeper role than he’s perhaps used to but he broke play up nicely on several occasions and certainly didn’t do his chances of getting more minutes any harm, but it’s hard to imagine where those minutes come from outside of the Europa Conference League.
However, it wasn’t all plain sailing for Casadei and journalist Rahman Osman reported that Maresca had to keep telling the Italian to stay in his midfield position and not leave it.
Positional play is a very important part of Maresca’s style of football and despite playing against lower level opposition where Casadei could have got away with it, the 44-year-old wanted to keep control throughout the 90 minutes.
Casadei is a young player and his minutes against Barrow were his first of the season so he’s still adapting to what Maresca wants from his midfield players, but it’s unlikely he’s got a long term future at the club given Andrey Santos and Lesley Ugochukwu, who are both highly regarded will be back next season.
The midfielder will find himself at best on the bench against Brighton on Saturday and his next chance of minutes is likely to be against Belgian side Gent next Thursday.
