Chelsea player stats: Moises Caicedo shedding £100m millstone with impressive early-season form | OneFootball

Among the biggest transfer sagas of last summer was Moisés Caicedo’s future. He banked on Chelsea, who parted with £100 million for his services, placing a millstone around his neck. After struggling, the Ecuadorian midfielder has slowly begun to shed that pressure and revert to his former self.

He is now displaying the kind of performances the Blues had hoped for, but under a different manager. Enzo Maresca inherited the squad from Mauricio Pochettino, and before the season kicked off, Caicedo spoke of his excitement, feeling that with the Italian at the helm, he can progress.

“He plays like the same system that I played in Brighton. He wants the same. He wants me to show my quality, to have good personality, to show to my team-mates that I am the boss on the pitch,” Caicedo said. “For sure, I will be a good player with him.”

To say Caicedo has simply been good would be an understatement. After the opening five Premier League rounds, Maresca utilised only goalkeeper Robert Sánchez and central defender Levi Colwill (both 450) more in terms of minutes played.

Last time out against West Ham, he made eight tackles, the most in the game. He also won the most duels (13) and had an 87% pass success rate. Over the course of this Premier League season so far, no one has made more tackles (21) than Caicedo, while only Bruno Guimarães (47) has won more ground duels than Caicedo (44).

Maresca feels Caicedo can still improve but wants him to ignore any talk about his price tag. “About the price it is not a Moi (Caicedo) problem, it is the market that decides the price. Most of the time because clubs pay a lot of money for players, we expect that kind of player to always be the best,” he noted.

Marseca isn’t exaggerating about Caicedo, who still has room for improvement. It’s worth remembering that he doesn’t turn 23 until November, which is timely as he was named the best under-23 midfielder in the world according to the CIES Football Observatory’s data. He was ranked ahead of Eduardo Camavinga and Kobbie Mainoo.

Caicedo sees his predecessor N’Golo Kanté as a role model. He may never reach the heights of the French international, but that’s not out of the question, as he excels at stopping fast breaks and intercepting tight passes in midfield. But that hasn’t stopped comparisons being drawn with former Blues midfielder John Obi Mikel, the latest following Caicedo’s aforementioned stellar performance at West Ham.

“Now you can feel this is the Moises Caicedo that we all know and also when you watch him, when you look at him right now, you can see that there’s a bit of confidence there,” he said on his podcast.

“He’s absolutely fantastic, I watched him there, he was everywhere. It’s a bit like a Kante kind of performance. All credit to Moises and also for the manager to give him such confidence and to make sure that he believes in him.

“Now he’s paid off with the performances and this is the guy that I think will eventually go on to maybe, probably captain the team.”

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