Chelsea fans and pundits are poring over the wreckage of a pretty wretched 2-0 defeat to Newcastle at St James’ Park, looking for scapegoats, and Enzo Fernandez was regularly chosen as one of them.
On the Evening Standard’s website, the Argentine got the lowest rating on the Chelsea team, with the following explanation applied:
“Enzo Fernandez 3: Captained the side but showed no leadership in the face of first-half Toon storm. Appealing for free-kick when could have stopped Tonali assisting the opener. Caught on the ball so often.”
It wasn’t just getting caught on the ball that was the problem, it was giving it away too. There were two first half instances where the midfielder tried an aggressive only to see it deflected off course. He showed his frustration on both occasions, as thought it wasn’t his fault they’d been cut out.
Enzo fears fulfilled as midfielder struggles
The criticisms about Enzo’s leadership above also ring true, unfortunately. As one of the first team stars parachuted down into the B team, he should have been full of authority, as well as quality. Instead, he showed little of either.
Instead of thriving in a lower pressure game, he brought his first team form down to this tier too. For a player we’ve seen show amazing quality before, it’s quite amazing to see the dropoff. It’s true that there’s simply not a space for his profile in the team, but it seems also that high intensity games like this just don’t suit him either.
Enzo Maresca has made the decision to leave him out of his first team, and they look better for it. The pressure will always be there to bring him back because of the price tag, but right now he’s not making much of a case for it.
