Mois\u00e9s Caicedo emerged from Chelsea\u2019s 1\u20130 victory over Tottenham Hotspur with fresh endorsement from his manager and team-mates, and with a prominent pundit declaring him at an elite level. The plaudits underline a season in which Caicedo’s performances have remained consistently influential.<\/p>\n
\u201cMoi, I think he\u2019s showing how good he is,\u201d Enzo Maresca said after the match. Maresca went further on Caicedo\u2019s status: \u201cHe\u2019s top. I said many times, the best thing from Moi, for sure, we judge him on the pitch. But he\u2019s so humble, he\u2019s such a good guy, he\u2019s always there to help everyone. For me, him and Rodri, in this moment, they are the two best defensive midfielders in the world.\u201d Maresca\u2019s assessment carries weight given his previous work with Rodri at Manchester City and his familiarity with the Spaniard, who won the Ballon d\u2019Or in 2024.<\/p>\n
The manager\u2019s comments also reflect the view that Caicedo\u2019s form has not been disrupted by recent off-field stories. The drama surrounding Caicedo\u2019s change of agent and the speculation it sparked about a possible transfer did not appear to affect his on-field contributions.<\/p>\n
Goalkeeper Robert S\u00e1nchez, who played alongside Caicedo at Brighton, offered even stronger praise. \u201cI don\u2019t really need to talk about him but he\u2019s an actual animal,\u201d S\u00e1nchez commented. \u201cHe’s the best player on the planet in his position. He\u2019s one of the best in the world, who is better than him in that position? He\u2019s a beast. Every 50-50, every challenge he wins and is so composed on the ball.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t seen him change much. As a player and as a character, he\u2019s always been the same, hard work, effort, quiet but a very good guy. Obviously, he\u2019s filled out with his body a bit more with age, and with experience, he\u2019s just got better and better on the pitch. His confidence has also gone higher and higher. He\u2019s a boss at winning the midfield.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sky Sports pundit Jamie Redknapp added: \u201cWorld class,\u201d Redknapp gushed. \u201cI would go as far as to say right now, the best of his type in world football. Just absolutely phenomenal, the way he covers ground, his desire, his quality on the ball, putting out fires for his team, chasing lost causes, strength on the ball, always making the right pass.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re playing as a defender and you\u2019ve got someone like that hoovering up in front of you and adding quality like that, it\u2019s just a dream, an absolute dream.\u201d The comparisons with past Chelsea midfield greats underline how highly Caicedo is now regarded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Caicedo lauded by Enzo Maresca, Robert S\u00e1nchez and Jamie Redknapp after Chelsea\u2019s 1\u20130 win. Midfield.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4249,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,172],"tags":[983,1064,1140],"class_list":["post-4250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-epl","tag-agents","tag-ballon-dor-2","tag-caicedo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4250","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=4250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}