Honestly when Chelsea’s line up for Watford was announced and I saw Saul Niguez was starting, I was fully behind him and was desperate for him to finally show what he can do.
But it’s hard to think of words to describe his 45 minute performance without sounding too harsh, because he was quite simply abysmal, there are no two ways about it.
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You’d be mistaken for wondering whether Chelsea had taken a player on loan from Accrington Stanley and not a Spanish international from Atletico Madrid, with all due respect to Accrington of course.
But he couldn’t pass, couldn’t defend, couldn’t run, gave the ball away consistently, had no idea about his positioning, and got booked early on. He was terrible.
It was no surprise to see him hooked by Thomas Tuchel at half time, he literally had no choice. And even the manager fears for Saul’s future now and has no answers.
“I don’t know where he goes from this performance,” Tuchel said after the game as reported by WAGNH.
“He was on a yellow card so we had two options at half time: take Marcos Alonso off who also had a yellow card and try Saul as a wing-back. I had this in my mind before the game, if something happened to Marcos.
“I thought maybe it was not the right match to try things with new positions so it was him to change the shape a little bit and have Thiago on the pitch with his organising.”
These are very damning words from the boss.
