Why Moises Caicedo Fixes One Of Chelsea's Biggest Problems
Chelsea's Moises Caicedo
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00:00 Hi there everybody, Adam Cleary from 442 here. Please do deke the new pitch side advertising
00:08 boards while you're at it. And today it's all about Moises Caicedo.
00:13 "Well, well, well" says the entire rest of the Premier League. A player has one good
00:19 season and wouldn't you just know it, Chelsea are about to spunk somewhere around £100
00:24 million to get him in. When will they ever learn?
00:28 Well, Chelsea fans, if you are watching this then I'm here to tell you that now, you have
00:32 learned now. This is the signing of a learned club. This is the signing of a smart club.
00:38 And yet it is a lot of money and yes he is very young and yes no transfer is ever guaranteed
00:42 to work out well but if Chelsea were going to make one big move this summer, just one,
00:47 that's two, just one, this is the one they should make.
00:51 Alright, so Moises Caicedo, there's two reasons if you're Chelsea that you buy him. The first
00:58 is because of who he is and the second is because of who you are. So, who is he? He
01:03 was a 21 year old Ecuadorian defensive midfielder who Brighton plucked from a league you've
01:07 never even heard of, I certainly hadn't, and turned him into one of the stars of last season's
01:13 Premier League. One of the main reasons why they were genuinely within a sniff of getting
01:17 into those Champions League places. And that's nice isn't it? He's a great player in a good
01:21 team but there's loads and loads of those you could go out and buy. So what makes him
01:24 different? Well, he is of a profile that you seldom see anywhere. And what I mean by that
01:30 is think of what you want from a defensive midfielder, right? You either want someone
01:34 who's incredibly technical, great with the ball at his feet, is going to be a key part
01:38 of your build up and isn't going to give it away in these risky areas or you want a total
01:43 bastard don't you? Who's going to slam into tackles, win the ball, read danger, cover
01:47 space, one of those two things you want, right? And the reason someone like Caicedo is rarer
01:52 than a rocking horse s*** is because he's both and not just he's really good at one
01:57 and can do a bit of the other if needed. If you sort of like worked out who the best players
02:00 in the league were at both of these roles, he'd be pretty near the top of both of them.
02:05 Like genuinely elsewhere in the league there's only really Rodri at Man City who posts comparable
02:10 numbers in terms of his defensive contribution and his role in the build up. Like these players
02:15 don't come along very often so when they do, they're very spinny. If we just take a quick
02:19 little look at his frankly astonishing FB ref profile here, you'll see that he wins the
02:24 ball loads and not just in his defensive third but he wins it all over the pitch as well.
02:28 He's virtually impossible to dribble around, he intercepts the ball really well but look
02:32 at the number of errors he's making, how low that is. That's even more impressive if you
02:37 look at how Brighton used to build out from the back last season. Where possible he was
02:41 almost always the first pass out of defence and because of the way Brighton like to invite
02:45 teams on, as you can see here, he is always receiving the ball in congested areas with
02:50 loads of players around him. So everything about the way Brighton set up, from him receiving
02:54 it with loads of players around him to him only being able to do a sort of quick one
02:57 touch pass facing the other way, he should have given the ball away quite a lot. Like
03:02 that would be an understandable thing about his game, part of the cost of playing that
03:06 way but he didn't. He's so, so good at not losing the ball. He's virtually impossible
03:11 for teams to press as well, like his close control is so good, he can glide past players,
03:15 he can literally beat a man with just his first touch and in a game it's becoming more
03:19 and more about pressing and squeezing the opposition and winning it back in dangerous
03:23 areas. That's one of the most important types of player to have. It's actually doing him
03:28 a bit of a disservice to only think of him as a defensive midfielder, by the way. Like
03:31 I know he only had like one goal and one assist and he was really involved in the build up
03:36 and he would often be that first pass but look at the number of touches he gets in the
03:40 attacking third. Look how much he does his work there as well. He would move with the
03:44 team up the pitch to be an option around there as well and he was comfortable doing it. Look
03:49 at that, like touches in the attacking third, tackles in the attacking third, passes into
03:53 the penalty area. That's not the profile of a player who does all of his work in front
03:57 of the defence and just kind of sits cautiously. That guy is involved in everything. But also,
04:01 yeah, at the same time it's not a disservice to call him a defensive midfielder because
04:05 look at his defensive work. Look how good he is in the tackle. Boom, smash, clatter,
04:09 pow, etc. Think about it this way, right? You know what a game state is? Like is it
04:13 early? Is it late? Are you winning? Are you losing? Are you attacking? Are you defending?
04:17 Like what's basically going on right now? There are very few players that can influence
04:22 every single possible game state. He's one of them. I know what you're thinking, alright.
04:26 So what? He's just a fantastic player. He'd benefit any team in the world. Why are Chelsea
04:30 so horny for him? And my brother in Christ, did you see Chelsea last season? I'll just
04:37 surmise their whole problem in one statistic, right? Forget the goals they conceded, forget
04:40 the goals they scored, forget their league position, the points, everything. Just look
04:44 at the number of times they made a mistake that led to the opposition having a shot.
04:49 They were second in the whole league for that. They were a sloppy, sloppy shot. And I don't
04:55 actually blame the players too much for that. Like first, Tuchel was there and he was trying
04:59 to get them to do one thing and then Potter came in. He tried to get them to do another
05:02 thing and then another thing and then another thing and then another thing every single
05:06 week until he left and then Frank Lampard came in and he didn't seem to know what to
05:10 do with them. So you can't really blame the players too much. One thing they definitely
05:15 didn't have over the course of the season, which Brighton obviously did, was a very clear,
05:19 very defined, very well rehearsed, very well practised, very well drilled tactical system.
05:24 They had virtually no consistent build up at all. So even just as a first port of call,
05:29 getting someone in like Kayserder, who as we've seen makes virtually no mistakes in
05:32 this area of the pitch whatsoever, will massively improve that for them.
05:36 The thing is, if you're Chelsea, the main reason you buy Moises Kayserder isn't actually
05:41 Moises Kayserder. It's Enzo Fernandes. What was it like? £100 million? Chelsea paid for
05:47 him because he had a reputation for being one of the most exciting and dynamic midfielders
05:52 in the world and he showed in flashes why he's got that reputation, sure, but Chelsea
05:56 did not help him out one little bit.
05:59 Now just a heads up Chelsea fans, I may get this slightly wrong because he used about
06:02 400 different systems last season, but when you bought him, Potter was still trying to
06:05 do this like 3-5-2 system and wanted him to be sort of the lynchpin in the middle. And
06:11 he did pretty okay with it, but because none of the other players around him were really
06:14 at that sort of level in terms of this phase of the game, it forced him deeper and deeper
06:18 and deeper as he had to do more and more of the work and they got this disconnect between
06:22 the rest of the team and he should have been further up the pitch because that's where
06:24 he was really, really good and it was a total waste.
06:26 So then what Potter tried to do was he went to a back four and he tried to use Fernandes
06:33 in like a 4-2-3-1, yeah that's what it looks like. But the problem this created was even
06:38 though you've got two players there now, so that should theoretically lift a bit of the
06:41 burden and mean you can get around and be a bit more dynamic, the player often paired
06:46 with him was Ruben Loftus-Cheek.
06:48 Now I quite like Ruben Loftus-Cheek, but if I am an opposition manager and the other team
06:52 are playing a double pivot of Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Enzo Fernandes and I can only really mark
06:57 one of them out of the game, I'm going to mark Enzo Fernandes.
07:01 And that meant again because Loftus-Cheek wasn't on his level in terms of that kind
07:04 of build up that Fernandes had to drop deeper and deeper and deeper to escape his markers
07:08 and didn't solve any of the problems at all.
07:11 And then when Frank Lampard came in, what he really wanted to do was sort of play a
07:14 4-3-3 with like Gallagher or whoever and Enzo was one of the eights, Kante in that sort
07:20 of pivot role because he's obviously a better defensive player.
07:22 But the problem is Kante's great in that role, but the game is sort of catching up with him.
07:27 Pressing's a bigger thing now.
07:29 He's not that good on the ball certainly compared to Fernandes.
07:32 So that meant that either Fernandes had to drop deeper and deeper and deeper to join
07:35 him or when he couldn't even field Kante because he was injured, he played there.
07:39 And because they've now got five players in front of him and sort of very attacking fullbacks,
07:44 he was still again pinned in this really deep area.
07:47 So the reason you buy Moises Caicedo is because it would let you use Enzo Fernandes the way
07:52 you should really use Enzo Fernandes.
07:54 So none of us have any idea how Pochettino's going to set Chelsea up, but if he uses a
07:58 4-2-3-1, which he loved at Spurs and did still use at PSG, you can have Fernandes and Caicedo.
08:05 And what that would mean is you've then got two players who are equally comfortable being
08:09 the first point of that build up.
08:10 They can both drop into the back three to play around there and allow the other one
08:14 to sort of move into the space and get further up pitch.
08:17 And because they're both on that same sort of level for doing that, it means A) you can't
08:20 just mark one out of the game and B) they can take turns.
08:24 And you know what?
08:25 Truth be told, it's actually this kind of system and this kind of partnership that got
08:28 Fernandes' big reputation in the first place.
08:31 Like, yeah, all the Argentina stuff, that's very impressive.
08:33 But if Benfica, when he was playing with Florentino Luis, this is what he did.
08:37 This is where he looked that good.
08:38 He would always push up to be the other man supporting the attacking line.
08:41 He created loads and loads of chance of doing this and he could because Luis was great
08:45 at covering ground.
08:46 He was great at recognizing the space.
08:47 He was a very Moises Caicedo type play.
08:50 He was equally comfortable receiving the ball as well to free Fernandes to go and push up.
08:55 And also one final point about Caicedo that has been brought to us by 442's very own Mark
09:00 White.
09:01 You should follow him.
09:02 He's very funny.
09:03 Is that Caicedo can also play as an emergency right back.
09:06 Now, so what?
09:07 You might be thinking loads of players can play in emergency roles, but think about how
09:09 popular box midfields were last year.
09:12 The ability to bring someone out of the defensive line and have them make up a nice square four
09:17 in the middle of the pitch.
09:18 John Stones was very good at that by coming out of centre back to do it or alternatively
09:22 Alexander Zinchenko.
09:24 He would come up from left back to do it.
09:25 So what's to stop Chelsea with Caicedo in the team doing the exact same thing?
09:30 Now, I don't think that is how they'll play, but that is a very, very good option for them
09:34 to have at the minute, especially if Rhys James, for example, got injured for a while.
09:37 So yes, to surmise, Caicedo doesn't just solve several of the problems Chelsea have right
09:41 now because of his versatility, both positionally and in different phases of the game.
09:46 He actually solves several of the problems they're likely to have in the future.
09:50 So yeah, if you've got 80, 90, 100 million quid, that's probably pretty good justification
09:54 for spending it.
09:55 Not like their usual approach, which is just look at him, Mr. Bully.
09:59 He can run real fast and he's got all the pretty tattoos.
10:02 Yes, there you go.
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10:34 I've been Adam Cleary.
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