Maurizio Sarri’s reign at Chelsea has been an odd one. After a start that saw us unbeaten into November, things have fallen apart pretty quickly, and a lot of issues have been boiled down to really simple disputes between the fans and their new manager.
Chief among these is the use of Jorginho as a “regista” while N’Golo Kante and one of Mateo Kovacic and Ross Barkley play further ahead.
There have been plenty of people calling for Sarri to try playing Kovacic deeper, and last night we got to see how he would get on in that role, especially after Jorginho went off in the 74th minute and the Croat dropped into his role.
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In the game last night, he accumulated 135 touches, leaving Jorginho in his dust on 63, according to WhoScored. That was matched by an equally impressive passing record – he had 117 attempted to the Italian’s 52.
Overall, we know that Mateo has a lot of the skills needed to play that deep-lying passer role. However he also has a lot to his game going forwards, as we saw with the superb wriggle between players he dropped in the first half.
Do we really want to play him deeper and risk missing out on him being able to use that in attacking areas?
