Midfielder Enzo Fernandez recently lost his starting place in Enzo Maresca’s Chelsea A-Team that starts league games, with the Italian preferring to pick Romeo Lavia and Moises Caicedo ahead of him.
I think Caicedo is THE permanent fixture in that starting line up, with the rest up for grabs really. Cole Palmer is perhaps another.
So Lavia and Fernandez are competing directly for that other midfield spot, and Fernandez has certainly staked his claim again. Lavia was back from a small knock on Saturday so he sat the bench as expected, although he did come on later on but actually gave away a bit of a silly penalty.
Lavia has been good though and has also earned his starting spot. The next big question will be, who starts on Thursday night when Chelsea face Heidenheim in the Conference League? Lavia is likely to get the nod after Fernandez played on Saturday. It will then be down to Lavia to earn his spot back, that’s pretty much how it works with solid and quality competition.
Fernandez did more than enough to keep his place with his performance against Leicester, earning our SPTC man of the match and playing very well. His attitude and energy was great and a perfect example to the rest of the squad on what you need to do when you get your chance to play in this team to try and earn a spot.
Reacting to losing his spot in the starting Xl for league games was what he needed to do, and he did it perfectly. You can see why Maresca sees leadership in Fernandez.
His form has dipped in an out during his entire Chelsea career so far. We all know he needs to be more consistent. But perhaps what has been going on off the field in his private life really has effected him.
Let’s hope this can be a turning point for Fernandez and he continues to show top all round performances of a complete midfielder that he showed on Saturday.