We’ve really enjoyed Joao Pedro’s time at Chelsea so far.
He made the perfect start, being really effective from the moment he arrived at the Club World Cup.
He’s nasty, physical, but technical too, with nice link up play and finishing. He’s been used as a 9 or a 10 and already has two goals.
But drilling down a little deeper, while it’s excellent to have a player able to compete and score corners, as he did for both his goals so far, the team are going to need more than just set piece contributions for him.
He’s often quite isolated when playing as a 9, and while Liam Delap is out injured and Marc Guiu isn’t trusted, that’s exactly where he’s going to be for the foreseeable future.
It’s time for JP to get his first open play goal going, and a look at his box touches in the league show that it’s going to take a while at this rate.
Date | Opponent | Minutes Played | Box Touches |
---|---|---|---|
August 17, 2025 | vs. Crystal Palace | 90 | 4 |
August 22, 2025 | at West Ham | 90 | 4 |
August 30, 2025 | vs. Fulham | 73 | 5 |
September 13, 2025 | at Brentford | 90 | 4 |
September 17, 2025 | at Bayern Munich | 90 | 6 |
Of course top strikers only need a few touches to make an impact – one touch is all it takes to score. But it’s generally symptomatic of an attack that isn’t supplying the Brazilian with enough ammunition to score the goals we need to put games away.
Enzo Maresca needs to figure out how a team without Cole Palmer can get the ball to the former Brighton man in dangerous positions. Estevao Willian and Alejandro Garnacho are being lined up to play more, and can hopefully do a better job than Jamie Gittens and Pedro Neto have been doing.
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