A season that began with Chelsea not quite yet finished with their stockpiling of wingers continues at Aston Villa this evening with Enzo Maresca down to his last senior pair.
With Noni Madueke’s hamstring injury ruling him out until after next month’s international break, Joao Felix gone and Mykhailo Mudryk banned, Jadon Sancho and Pedro Neto are left to provide the wide threat for a team that, its manager has finally ceded, has eyes on the top-four.
“Threat”, though, is a bit of an incongruous inclusion in that sentence, since as a collective Chelsea’s has all-but gone, the Blues failing to muster even a shot on target in defeat at Brighton last weekend.
Worse still, is that even when Marescaball was purring, goals from out wide were not a strength; Madueke may have seven in the league this season, but Sancho and Neto have combined for just four in 41 games.
Speaking on Friday, Maresca acknowledged the problem but drew on a golfing analogy to make clear where the blame for it lies.
“If you take Rory McIlroy’s caddie and he says use the seven-iron and he gives him the seven-iron, McIlroy will put the ball in the hole,” he explained. “If he gives the seven-iron to me, I’ll put the ball 100 metres from the hole.
“Our duty is to put the players in the best position for them. Pedro, Jadon, Noni - since we started, I think in every game we put them in situations, one-vs-one inside the box. Then it’s about their quality. We bring them there but it’s about them.”
Chelsea’s wingers do not stack up favourably in scoring terms against their rivals, even ignoring Mohamed Salah who, as Maresca pointed out, is something of a freak in hitting the 20-goal barrier and now accelerating beyond.
Last season, though, Phil Foden, Bukayo Saka, Bryan Mbeumo, Jarrod Bowen and Heung-min Son all managed at least 15, albeit some with spells through the middle for their respective teams. With Madueke out until the final two months of the campaign, none of Chelsea’s are certain to hit even ten this term.
Chelsea can probably do without that level of consistent contribution from out wide because in Cole Palmer they have a No10 who outscores every other in the league by some way. But there are moments where they need more than they are getting and, with Palmer off colour and Nicolas Jackson injured, this is one of those.
In Sancho’s case, the tale is by now well told, of a player still longing to recapture the form of that dazzling period at Borussia Dortmund in his breakout years. In three seasons between 2018 and 2021, he was involved in 82 Bundesliga goals, scoring 37.
Performances from the Englishman this season have been a notable mark-up on almost anything in his time at Manchester United, aided first and foremost by actually being on the pitch, but still his raw output remains miles below that peak.
Neto, by contrast, still has not proven himself a player capable of turning talent into goals. This is a winger who, prior to joining Chelsea, found the net just three times across his final three league seasons at Wolves. Injuries played a major part, yes, but he still made 51 appearances in that time. His best ever league return came the season before, at five. Since arriving in English football, it is 13 goals in five-and-a-half years.
With that record laid bare it feels a little odd that Chelsea were willing to part with north of £50million for him last summer, but they were not the sole interested party. Indeed, Gary O’Neil, Wolves manager at the time, felt only those injury problems stopped the Portuguese moving straight to a Champions League club, with Arsenal known to be long-term admirers.
Neto and Sancho, born little more than a fortnight apart, will both turn 25 next month and though their careers to this point have been stop-start for various reasons, this ought now to be prime time.
“For sure, we need more goals from the wingers,” Maresca agreed. “From now on we have 13 games and hopefully they can help us until the end.”
