Chelsea are compounding their interest in bringing Brighton ace Joao Pedro to Stamford Bridge in a deal worth £50m as the chiefs in West London look to prepare for the return of Champions League football.
We saw how the West Londoners struggled to compound on their offensive sequences in the last season, especially with the faltering finishing, and this is something that the Premier League heavyweights are trying to resolve in the offseason. To start with, the club already brought in Liam Delap from Ipswich Town earlier this summer, and given how the Manchester City academy graduate had played for the tractor boys, the goals are surely to follow for him.
But Enzo Maresca still wants to add another player of surety that the Blues will get goals next season at the end of his sequences, and this is where the links to Brighton forward come into the picture.
Joao Pedro, in a lot of ways, aligns with the tactical philosophy of the former Foxes manager, given how he adds a layer of versatility alongside his flair and pressing energy. All of these qualities come quite in line with the tactical philosophy already deployed at Chelsea.
So how would the former Watford forward end up fitting in at West London?
Maresca comes from the Pep Guardiola philosophy of football, and that can be keenly seen in how he builds his side around technical security and uses those fluid positional interchanges combined with aggressive counterpressing. And the thing with Joao Pedro is that he excels in all of these areas given how he enables the Blues to win the ball higher given his work rate and pressing IQ. Moreover, the Brazilian also likes to drop deep and combine in tight spaces, which could benefit the likes of Cole Palmer.
Then if I am talking about Pedro, he has this capacity to break the lines from deeper positions given how good he is at carrying the ball through channels and dribbling it in behind the opponents backline (Enzo can use this smartly to disorganise compact blocks and find those shot-creating spaces).
And given how mobile he is, Joao Pedro can play across the front line as well as in a false nine role, giving a sense of tactical flexibility to Chelsea.
So, how does Joao Pedro fit in Maresca’s system?
When we are thinking about the 3-2-5 in-possession shape that the North Londoners adopt under Maresca, we believe that Joao Pedro would likely be used in a few attacking roles based on the opponents and game situation, and this also includes a possible false 9 role given how the Brazilian is good at dropping into the midfield to help create central overloads, or he can also play in that left-sided attacking midfield role in that offensive front five (here his ball-carrying ability and interplay with wide players can be used to create shot-creating opportunities).
With Pedro, I also think that he can play finely in that secondary striker role when you place him alongside a more traditional, physical number nine, and this is where I think that you can link up summer signing Liam Delap with Joao Pedro in a very similar way to what Brighton did with him and Welbeck in the last season, which saw both of them thrive. This brings a lot of technical versatility in that final third.
Is Joao Pedro the Nkunku that never was…?
Given how the Frenchman has struggled with injuries since moving to Stamford Bridge and has never quite got into his strides at Chelsea, signing Joao Pedro could spell an end to the former RB Leipzig striker in West London. Nkunku is quite a similar, highly mobile player who can play multiple roles and has that knack for scoring goals, but we never saw any of it from him at Chelsea, and signing Joao Pedro could well mean that the Blues are preparing to move on from Nkunku.
Weaknesses
With Joao Pedro coming in, Chelsea will have three pure central forwards alongside Liam Delap and Nikolas Jackson, and Pedro could well end up getting lost in this crowded roster if he is not given a defined tactical role.
Must Read:
- How can £55.5 million wide forward thrive at Chelsea? – Opinion
- How does Aston Villa ace fit in at Chelsea under Enzo Maresca? – Opinion
- What makes Chelsea compound their efforts to sign Jamie Gittens – Opinion
Author Opinion
With the potential that he has, Joao Pedro can end up being that savvy, high positional signing for Maresca’s Chelsea. And while it is given that he will not solve the #9 conundrum outright, he ends up honing the Blues pressing whilst bringing that positional and tactical flexibility, and he could unlock space for players like Palmer and Delap.
