Marc Guehi is serious about playing Premier League football next season
https://theathletic.com/2463674/2021/03/20/marc-guehi-is-serious-about-playing-premier-league-football-next-season/?source=emp_shared_article
In less than two months, Thomas Tuchel has transformed Chelsea into one of the meanest defensive teams in Europe. It’s no surprise, then, that some of their fans are keen to see what he could do with arguably the best centre-back in this season’s Championship.
Swansea City manager Steve Cooper’s pledge to give Marc Guehi “every chance” to be fit for the derby against Cardiff City today (Saturday) was an implicit admission of just how critical the 20-year-old Chelsea loanee has become to his team’s promotion charge. During Guehi’s two-game absence because of a groin problem, Swansea managed to eke out a 1-0 win against mid-table Luton Town before suffering a 3-0 defeat away at play-offs-chasing Bournemouth.
Cooper has taken care not to rush his star defender back, but the sense of urgency is unavoidable. With 10 matches of their regular season remaining, Swansea’s hopes of automatic promotion to the Premier League are in the balance, with Watford and Brentford, who play their games earlier in the day, primed to punish any further stumbles. Cardiff, having lost 2-0 at home to Swansea in December and sitting six points outside the play-off spots themselves, will feel every incentive to cause their Welsh rivals some pain.
The stakes might be even higher for Guehi, who is approaching an early crossroads in his promising career. He will effectively have two years remaining on his contract this summer: one guaranteed and another in the form of an optional extension Chelsea are certain to trigger to preserve his value. Marina Granovskaia’s track record suggests she will want to agree a new deal before sanctioning another loan move for him next season, but that is unlikely to be a straightforward conversation.
Guehi plans to play Premier League football next season, whether that’s with Swansea or elsewhere. He, like many of those who watch him regularly, believes he is ready to make the step up to the top flight. But sources have told The Athletic there is also a reluctance to run the risk of ending up in a cycle of loans that stall the career momentum he has worked so hard to build. The example of Nathan Ake, who was sold to Bournemouth for £20 million in the summer of 2017 with Chelsea retaining an option to buy him back for twice that fee, has been mentioned as a preferable alternative path.
Tuchel and Chelsea have more pressing priorities for now, while Guehi’s mind is fully on helping Swansea to realise their promotion dream after three years in the Championship.
When all of the key parties gather this summer, you can be confident the centre-back will navigate the decision he faces with the same seriousness, diligence and maturity that have got him to this point.
A south-east London boy and one of four children, Guehi was only a year old when his parents moved to England from the Ivory Coast. His father is a minister and Guehi could often be found playing the drums in their local church on Sunday mornings when he was a child. Religion is just as important to Guehi now as it was back then.
“I’ve grown up loving God and when I have had the chance I still go to church with my family, and my faith is definitely a big part of my life,” he explained in an interview in Swansea’s match programme last month. “Faith is everything that I’m involved with, really; even in football, where I’m trying to be a role model and show God’s graciousness and God’s glory through my life.”
Education was the priority at home in the early days, rather than football, which Guehi says “made it to the front (of the queue) as I got older”. Guehi started playing at the age of six for Cray Wanderers, where his coach was also a Chelsea scout. He joined Chelsea as a defender when he was at under-eights level and has been there ever since, working his way through the age groups and never really changing position.
Although naturally right-footed, Guehi often plays on the left side. That left foot, as anyone who has watched him play for Swansea over the last year or so will tell you, is for much more than standing on. Take a look at the inch-perfect pass he slid beautifully into the path of Jamal Lowe against Norwich a couple of months ago.
That confidence and technique is a legacy of the hours spent practising indoors at Cobham on a Tuesday night between the ages of nine and 12, when Chelsea worked repetitively on core skills by putting on individual drills that encouraged academy players to be equally comfortable passing with either foot.
Guehi embraced that work and thrived, but never gave serious consideration to football as a career until the age of 15. By that time, his talent was there for all to see and would soon bring international recognition. Guehi captained the England Under-17s side who lost to Spain in the final of the European Championship in May 2017. Five months later, he scored in the final when Steve Cooper’s side beat Spain 5-2 to lift the Under-17s World Cup.
Three members of that World Cup squad ended up being reunited at Swansea in January last year, when Conor Gallagher, Rhian Brewster and Guehi all joined on loan. Cooper’s contacts book has come in handy since becoming Swansea manager in 2019. “The Three Musketeers are back together,” Guehi said at the time. “I’m the mature and responsible one, Conor is the silent assassin, and Rhian’s the reckless one — he’s all over the place, but he’s a good form of carnage!” Brewster in turn called Guehi “my dad”.
Guehi’s description of himself as a person could also easily apply to how he plays. Focused and reliable, there is a coolness and assurance about him on the pitch. Perhaps the best example of that is the spot kick that Guehi took in the UEFA Youth League quarter-final against Dinamo Zagreb at Cobham two years ago, when Chelsea won 4-2 on penalties.
After walking up and placing the ball on the spot, Guehi put his hands on his hips, stood still and glanced across at the referee. With the goalkeeper expecting him to take a few steps back before running up, Guehi waited for the whistle to be blown, paused for a second, kept his left foot next to the ball and swung his right through to nonchalantly score. The ball was on its way past the goalkeeper before he had dived and the footage soon went viral.
By that stage in his development, Guehi had already had a taste of the first-team set-up at Chelsea and also identified the centre-back whom he wanted to emulate. “I had the chance to train with John Terry a few times when he was still playing, and I learned a lot from different players too, many who also came from different walks of life. It was a humbling experience,” he said.
“John was someone who I did really pay attention to, because he was a very decorated player, captained England and Chelsea and someone who had an amazing career. He’s a player who I’ve always looked up to as a young defender and definitely someone I’ve looked to try and model my game around.”
The first of Guehi’s two appearances for Chelsea came in September 2019, in a 7-1 win over League Two visitors Grimsby in the third round of the Carabao Cup. It was a bigger test for him than the scoreline suggests. He was up against James Hanson, the experienced 6ft 4in striker who had caused Kurt Zouma and Gary Cahill plenty of problems four and a half years earlier, when he helped third division Bradford win 4-2 at Stamford Bridge in the FA Cup. Guehi took a few whacks from the veteran target man, but kept coming back for more.
At 6ft, Guehi is not particularly tall for a centre-back but he has a superb leap. That was evident when Chelsea played Manchester United in the following round of last season’s Carabao Cup. In a callow Chelsea team, Guehi started again and played in a way that perhaps surprised one or two people, given the calibre of opposition. He was excellent.
Chelsea and Guehi knew that the time had come to, in the player’s words, “go and play men’s football”.
Knowing what we do now, it seems strange to think that Guehi endured a difficult start at Swansea and that Chelsea were genuinely concerned by his lack of game time there. Some Swansea supporters even questioned whether the defender was good enough to play at Championship level.
Those rash judgements proved to be flawed. They showed a lack of understanding about what it is like for a then-19-year-old to go out on loan and have to adjust to the physicality of senior football in the middle of a season. That said, there is no getting away from the fact Guehi had a tough baptism.
Settling in off the pitch was not a problem because of the familiar faces from Chelsea and England, but on the field, it was a different story. Although Guehi played reasonably well on his debut at Stoke City, he made a mistake in the 90th minute, when he was robbed of the ball and James McClean scored to double the home team’s lead.
That kind of thing happens to a defender from time to time and, ultimately, the error had no bearing on the result. A Championship game three weeks later was a bigger problem. Guehi played in the 4-4 draw against Hull City live on Sky Sports, when Swansea were woeful defensively against a side who were enduring a terrible run and would end up getting relegated.
With the benefit of hindsight, maybe it was not a wise move for Guehi and Ben Wilmot, another young on-loan centre-back, to play together at the heart of Cooper’s defence. It ended up being a difficult night for the pair of them as Swansea fell behind three times and then conceded a stoppage-time equaliser. Guehi, in one way or another, was caught up in three of the four Hull goals and, as ever, social media was not particularly forgiving.
Seven matches came and went across five pandemic-interrupted months before Guehi started again. This time, it was another live television game, against Sheffield Wednesday at home. Cooper changed his formation to a three-man defence because of injury problems and Swansea were dreadful in the first half but there was one silver lining: Guehi was outstanding.
In truth, Guehi has never looked back since that Sunday afternoon in early July. Cooper persevered with that new system for the remainder of the season and beyond, Swansea put together a run of form that saw them gatecrash the play-offs and Guehi, clearly growing in confidence with every game, quickly became a mandatory pick.
The remarkable challenge that he made to deny a certain goal in the 88th minute against Reading, where Swansea won 4-1 to pilfer sixth spot on the final day of last season, was every bit as important as the goal Wayne Routledge scored at the other end moments later. Guehi treated that expertly-timed block as if it was no big deal, and that is typical of how he plays.
Unassuming and rarely showing any sign of emotion, he quietly gets on with his job, whether reading the game intelligently before making an interception, carrying the ball out from the back, or using his immense physical strength to outmuscle an opponent (body-slamming Raheem Sterling in the recent FA Cup tie against Manchester City, after the England international tried to cut inside him, caused a bit of amusement on social media and beyond).
Guehi’s ability to step out from the back and break lines by running with the ball has been a big asset to Swansea this season. Positive and powerful when receiving possession, he drives upfield, committing opposition players and creating overloads, and often winning free kicks in the process.
Cooper’s influence on Guehi’s development during the last 12 months should not be overlooked. His work extends to a lot more than playing him. The Welshman is a coach first and foremost, and Guehi and Chelsea have a lot of time for the way the Swansea manager works with players collectively and individually.
Just about the only thing missing from Guehi’s game so far at Swansea is a goal, which is surprising given he averaged almost one every three games for Chelsea Under-18s a few seasons ago, including a spectacular scissor-kick against Arsenal. He has got in the right position at times for Swansea but maybe lacked a little bit of composure.
Guehi would be the first to admit that he is still learning all the time. He made a rare error a couple of weeks ago — coincidentally, away against Stoke again — when a poor pass across his own penalty area was cut out and led to Swansea falling behind inside six minutes. Some players would have been badly affected by that sort of mistake but it is a measure of Guehi’s temperament that he played the rest of the game as if nothing had happened.
At times, because of his maturity, it is easy to forget that Guehi is only 20 years old. That means he is still learning about life, not just football. He talks about how he has had to “come out of my shell a little bit as a person” at Swansea, as well as work on his culinary skills, courtesy of the recipes that his mum provides and the cooking tips he gets from his three sisters. As for the Welsh city itself, it suits Guehi down to the ground to be close to the sea and away from the bright lights: “I’m quite a quiet guy anyway, the London life can be a bit much for me.”
Assuming that Guehi recovers from the groin problem that has ruled him out of Swansea’s last two matches, this game against Cardiff will mark his 50th first-team appearance.
Looking back, it feels as though he has come a long way in a short time at Swansea. Yet you also sense that his journey is just getting started.
Chelsea ultimately opted against re-signing Ake in January 2020 or the following summer, concluding that he did not represent a significant upgrade on the centre-backs already at then-head coach Frank Lampard’s disposal. But no one could argue the switch to Bournemouth had been anything less than beneficial for everyone involved. Chelsea received £20 million for a player who came through their academy while retaining the possibility of capitalising on his future development, Bournemouth got a very talented young player and Ake got a platform that he used to establish himself as one of the Premier League’s brightest young centre-backs — eventually catching the eye of Manchester City, who signed him last summer for £40 million.
There are still too many uncertain variables to know if Guehi will follow a similar path. Thiago Silva is set to be a free agent this summer and will turn 37 in September, while Cesar Azpilicueta, Andreas Christensen and Antonio Rudiger are all set to enter the final year of their current contracts. Zouma, like Guehi, will have two years left on his. Fikayo Tomori may or may not be returning from a productive loan spell, depending on whether or not AC Milan decide to take up their option to buy him for £25 million plus £5 million in add-ons.
It’s easy to see how space could be made for Guehi within Tuchel’s defensive ranks next season, but there is also the danger of the 20-year-old finding himself buried in what currently is one of European football’s deepest squads, as Tomori was in the first half of this season. He is aware that regular Premier League football could get him, relatively quickly, into England manager Gareth Southgate’s thinking at a position of need.
The decisions Chelsea make about the contracts of their senior defenders will be instructive, as well as how determinedly they pursue a new centre-back in the summer.
But if he gets the impression that the club are inclined to double down on their current direction, don’t expect Guehi to be content to hang around.
.jpg.47393f9164ddbaa21c61eb4374d2f1bb.jpg)
.thumb.jpg.8fb88d2f3e0e6884a1aa67c4dce82986.jpg)
