Enzo Maresca’s settled team has been a real strength of his time in charge of Chelsea so far, but things could be about to change, with pressure rising on players like Jadon Sancho in particular.
Sancho’s introduction to the team a couple of weeks in to the season, shortly after his signing, was one of the few tweaks Maresca has made all season to his preferred lineup. Pedro Neto was dropped and Sancho came in with a bang, picking up regular assists as the Blues rolled to some big victories.
But a couple of bad results in a row – a draw with Nottingham Forest and a defeat to Liverpool – mean more pressure on the players picked for those games, and Sancho is particularly in the firing line after being hauled off at half time on Sunday in a change Maresca bluntly admitted was “tactical.”
Sancho set for season-long battle with wing rivals
Neto came on in that game, and while he wasn’t perfect, at least his speed and directness caused some trouble to Liverpool, who had held Sancho at arm’s length in the first period.
That followed a quiet game against Forest, and a negative trend in his productivity. Tom Coley of Football.London noted that the winger has had just one shot all season in the Premier League. It echoes the fears that we’ve had all along, that Sancho simply isn’t explosive enough to lose his man and get a shot away. All too often at Anfield he played it safe and played the ball backwards.
Famously the assists he’s picked up already were basically just short passes to players near him who then did something spectacular, rather than defence spitting through balls or superb crosses.
When we play Newcastle this weekend, we really expect Neto to be back in, and Sancho sat on the bench.
