It was not quite the mythic tale of David Moyes arriving at Manchester United and telling Rio Ferdinand just how much he could learn from Phil Jagielka.
But in different circumstances, an eyebrow might have raised when Enzo Maresca suggested the most expensive midfielder in history might resolve all his problems by being a little more Wilfried Ndidi.
Coming in the aftermath of Enzo Fernandez’s fine performance here at the King Power, in Chelsea’s 2-1 win over Maresca’s former Leicester side, though, it all made an odd amount of sense.
Restored to the Blues’s Premier League lineup for the first time in six weeks, Fernandez thrived in a more advanced role, setting up Nicolas Jackson’s first-half opener and then scoring what proved the decisive goal with a rebound header after the break.
“I’m trying to convince Enzo, in the same was as I did last year with Ndidi and Kiernan [Dewsbury-Hall] that attacking midfielders need to arrive in the box,” Maresca explained afterwards, that pair having both enjoyed the most prolific seasons of their career during the Foxes’s promotion-winning campaign last term.
“The reason why he scored today was because he was inside the box and if he was outside of the box, he wouldn’t have scored the goal.”
Teeing up Jackson’s fine finish made it five assists in three games across all competitions for Fernandez, but his goal was his first in a Chelsea shirt since early February, a run that, even including a spell out injured, had spanned 25 appearances.
Now, he has flitted between deeper and more attacking roles in that time and goals have never been the defining metric of Fernandez’s game in any case. Since he only ever scored four for Benfica (two of those in early Champions League qualifying) they certainly were not what Chelsea paid north of £100million for.
Fernandez was allowed the freedom to be every bit as advanced as Palmer and Felix, managing five touches in the Leicester box to the former’s four
But Maresca believes there is more to come from a player who is not 24 until the New Year and has offered a clear indication of where he sees his namesake best used in a Chelsea team that looks increasingly tactically flexible.
This was, Maresca felt, the “right game to use Enzo”, despite his late arrival back from international duty in South America, presumably on the grounds that two specialist holders - Moises Caicedo and Romeo Lavia - would have been overkill in a game the Blues were always likely to boss. Lavia’s own niggle on international duty may have played a part, but the Belgian had trained without issue at Cobham on Tuesday, while Fernandez was preparing to play Peru in Buenos Aires, and was fit enough to come off the bench.
Caicedo and Lavia have been outstanding of late, laying the platform for Chelsea’s potent frontline, and when a player has pushed on to add numbers to the attack it has tended to be Malo Gusto - missing through illness here - inverting from full-back. But the scuttling pair’s shared qualities of work-rate, anticipation and destructiveness fade in importance when you have 82 per cent of possession, as Chelsea did in the opening half an hour.
With Caicedo capable of manning the fort alone, Fernandez was allowed the freedom to be every bit as advanced as Cole Palmer and Joao Felix, managing five touches in the Leicester box to the former’s four.
If opponents are setting up to frustrate Palmer with growing success (the last five league games have brought only one goal, no assists and a good kicking) then Maresca will need more creativity from elsewhere in a run of fixtures that features plenty more games of this ilk.
You would bank on the Lavia-Caicedo axis being restored against Aston Villa next weekend, and away to Tottenham early next month. But between now and a trip to Manchester City in late January, Chelsea also play the other five members of a bottom six completed by the now manager-less Leicester, and the onus will be on the Blues to dictate.
