Enzo Maresca’s response confirms Chelsea have messed up midfield squad balance | OneFootball

Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall was a key player for Enzo Maresca at Leicester last season, and followed the coach to Stamford Bridge this year.

He was therefore expected to have a big role, but instead he’s barely featured. Maresca even had to answer a question today about whether there was an injury issue. He confirmed there wasn’t:

“For Kiernan, and all the players that were out of the squad, there was not a physical problem. Just a decision. It is the bad part of my part, it’s not the one I prefer,” the coach explained.

We’re sure Dewsbury-Hall wasn’t expecting to go straight into the team – the real issue for him is that there’s so much competition even in the B team.

Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall playing for Chelsea. (Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

Midfield balance leaves new signing without a natural space

To us, the squad was just not well constructed in this regard. In terms of players who can play as a number 6 (even if it’s not their strongest role) we’ve got Moises Caicedo, Enzo Fernandez and Romeo Lavia. Renato Veiga can fill in, but he’s already second choice left back.

Meanwhile Dewsbury-Hall plays as more of an attacking 8. There are far more players competing in those positions: Joao Felix, Carney Chukwuemeka, Christopher Nkunku, Cole Palmer, Cesare Casadei, Omari Kellyman, plus Fernandez or Caicedo if we wanted.

What would have made more sense to us is to have kept Andrey Santos and Lesley Ugochukwu (both happy as a 6) and not bought KDH at all.

And that’s before you even get onto selling Conor Gallagher. If that was done for balancing the books, it surely would have bene smart to not sign a replacement at all, and just use one of these other dozen players already on the books.

In any case, it looks like it’s going to be a tough battle for minutes for the former Leicester man this year.