Enzo Maresca has explained why club-record signing Enzo Fernandez is no longer in his first-choice team, suggesting that Chelsea’s midfield lacks “physicality” when the Argentine plays.
Fernandez signed for Chelsea from Benfica in January 2023 for a British-record transfer fee of £106.8million, soon after starring in Argentina’s World Cup win in Qatar.
The midfielder started six of Chelsea’s first seven Premier League matches under Maresca, missing only September’s win at Bournemouth through illness.
However, he was dropped for the trip to Liverpool earlier this month and Maresca appears to have settled on the pairing of Romeo Lavia and Moises Caicedo at the base of midfield ahead of Sunday’s meeting with Manchester United.
“First of all, it’s a matter of balance,” Maresca explained. “In this moment, Romeo and Moises give us physicality, strength in the middle.
“Otherwise, when we play with Enzo, it has to be Enzo with one of Moises and Romeo. Then, when Enzo moves [forward], we struggle a bit in the middle in terms of physicality. It is something that at the moment, Moises and Romeo give us.”
Despite his hefty transfer fee and lofty reputation as one of Europe’s brightest midfield talents, Fernandez’s Chelsea career is still yet to truly take off.
In recent weeks, he has found himself playing in what is effectively Chelsea’s second-string side in the cup competitions and endured a torrid evening in Wednesday’s Carabao Cup defeat by Newcastle.
“For Enzo, it is very simple,” Maresca added. “He is not playing in this moment, but we have so many games and he is going to play for sure in the future. Now, he’s not playing.
“It doesn’t mean he’s not going to play in two days and it doesn’t mean that Romeo and Moises are always going to play. In the moment that one of them drop, we can change it.”
Maresca has tended to play a 4-2-3-1 formation throughout his Chelsea reign so far, with Cole Palmer operating as a No10 ahead of a midfield pair.
However, Joao Felix has been in good form deputising in that role in both the Carabao Cup and Conference League fixtures and Maresca offered a tantalising hint that he could soon shake up his team to accommodate both players.
“It doesn’t mean in one game we cannot play with Cole and Joao in the pocket,” he said. “It depends on the game.
“Probably soon we are going to see Joao and Cole together in the pocket with a striker. It’s always the game that requires a different plan.”
