It’s pretty clear to everyone who has seen the games that Saul Niguez has really struggled in his time on the pitch for Chelsea so far. Even Thomas Tuchel can’t deny it, although he always tries to be supportive of the midfielder – despite having had to haul him off at half time on both his Premier League starts.
The manager was asked about the Spaniard today, and offered some pretty interesting excuses for why he might have struggled so much:
“He’s one of the guy that needs minutes. He is always in our thoughts and we think about every training session and form. I think he struggled a bit with the intensity and he’s a bit unlucky he played against Aston Villa, Southampton and Watford, all three were high-intensity games, above average,” Tuchel said in quotes picked up by Football.London.
“We try to encourage him because he grows into Chelsea more and more. We will not stop encouraging him and trying to bring out the best. It’s a high possibility he will improve tomorrow.
“It’s certainly true that those are all high intensity, high pressing teams, and in his last start against Watford a week ago, Saul was totally lost in a blizzard of yellow shirts.”
Let’s hope we can see him deployed in a lower tempo game next time – we need him to soak up some of the minutes that are wearing down our other midfield options.
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