Chelsea manager Xabi Alonso has conceded that Mois\u00e9s Caicedo was brought back too soon from injury before Sunday\u2019s defeat to Arsenal, a decision that left the midfielder unavailable once the problem worsened.<\/p>\n
Caicedo\u2019s absence left Chelsea short in the middle of the pitch, and Arsenal were able to expose that imbalance despite the 2\u20131 scoreline making the contest appear tighter than it was. Alonso said the issue should not become a long-term concern, but accepted that the club must be more careful in judging risk.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, not longer term, but it\u2019s about assessing the risk,\u201d he explained. \u201cProbably last week we took him too early and I don\u2019t want to make the same mistake again.\u201d<\/p>\n
The setback arrives at an awkward moment for Chelsea. Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez has already departed for Manchester City on Deadline Day in a $169 million (\u00a3125 million) move, while the collapse of the proposed arrival of Monaco\u2019s Lamine Camara has removed the option of an immediate replacement. Jordan Henderson\u2019s ongoing wrist injury has also contributed to the shortage.<\/p>\n
Rom\u00e9o Lavia has started all three Premier League games under Alonso, but has not been asked to go beyond 70 minutes in any of them. Since joining Chelsea in the summer of 2023, the Belgian has still not completed a full 90 minutes in a competitive match.<\/p>\n
Alonso has also used Reece James and Malo Gusto in midfield roles, even though both are right backs. James has filled in there before, but Gusto\u2019s central deployment has been more unexpected.<\/p>\n
The only other natural midfielder in the squad is Valent\u00edn Barco, yet Alonso has shown little inclination to rely on him. Barco was left unused against Arsenal and has played only eight Premier League minutes so far, although he did start the Carabao Cup second-round win over Luton Town and impressed against weaker opposition.<\/p>\n
With Caicedo unavailable and Barco out of the picture, Chelsea are effectively left with Lavia as their only fit specialist midfielder, and even his minutes must be managed carefully.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Alonso admits Caicedo was rushed back too soon, leaving Chelsea exposed in midfield.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19281,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,190],"tags":[1066,242,180],"class_list":["post-19282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-chelsea","tag-carabao-cup","tag-injury","tag-player-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}