🇧🇷 17. Andrey Santos

[Fernando 6,693]

19 hours ago, Special Juan said:

Middle of the road midfielder along with Enzo, too much money spent on shite and what we think are good players

Makele and Essien's are a thing of the past, mid's that can play real football

We need to wait with Santos. 

Many teams wanted him this summer and where mad with the club for wanting to sell him, potentially. 

I think he merits some time. 

 

[Special Juan 28,529]

He will be sold next

[Vesper 30,749]

3 hours ago, Special Juan said:

I'm not talking about Caicedo

you said

which is a general statement implying we have no MFers of that level

[Special Juan 28,529]

1 hour ago, Vesper said:

you said

which is a general statement implying we have no MFers of that level

Yep and Caicedo is one of very few, this club is still a million miles away from having players that can tie the laces of these players.

We have no leaders, no players who can match the players of many years ago hence we are a million miles away from what we are looking for

[Fernando 6,693]

He did good in the role of Caicedo. 

But curious can they both do well like someone mentioned up top of Makele and Essien?

Sadly Lavia should have been there but he is so injury prone that we can't build on him, needs to be send to Serie A where he might do good. 

We should now focus on what we can do with Caicedo and Santos in the mid, if it can work and complement each other ala Makele-Essien in their time. 

[Vesper 30,749]

On 24/11/2025 at 17:35, Fernando said:

Sadly Lavia should have been there but he is so injury prone that we can't build on him, needs to be send to Serie A where he might do good. 

Inter would be perfect for him

[Fernando 6,693]

I think he is the one that will benefit the most of Liam since he knows him well from his side in France. 

And this is what I wanted to see for a while, Caicedo and Santos in the mid. 

[OneMoSalah 9,022]

2 hours ago, Fernando said:

I think he is the one that will benefit the most of Liam since he knows him well from his side in France. 

And this is what I wanted to see for a while, Caicedo and Santos in the mid. 

Fully agree. He has the past relationship with him, he also impressed a lot today. Gave us a much better structure than what we get when Fernandez plays deeper IMO. 

[Thor 2,795]

I think he is a fairly average, decent bench option type. If someone wants to overpay for him I'd gladly let him go. 

He is a subpar athlete, and doesn't open the game up. He seems tactically switched on, but just isn't it. Essugo is the bigger talent and better player but unfortunately he is injured atm. 

[Vesper 30,749]

Andrey Santos: The key cog in the way Chelsea want to play under Liam Rosenior

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7007379/2026/01/30/Chelsea-andrey-santos-liam-rosenior-analysis/

“Andrey plays like he’s 32. I call him Dunga: he’s Brazilian but he doesn’t play like one. He’s so smart and his stats are through the roof, in terms of scoring goals, winning duels. He’s going to have an outstanding career.”

When they were uttered to The Athletic a year ago, Liam Rosenior’s words were interpreted simply as fulsome praise for Andrey Santos, the impressively mature Chelsea loanee he had chosen to captain his startlingly young Strasbourg side in a rollercoaster 2024-25 season that almost yielded a surprise Champions League qualification.

Much has changed in the last 12 months, and now they read as an early foreshadowing of the increasingly prominent role Santos is playing for Rosenior in the heart of Chelsea’s midfield.

The 21-year-old has featured in all but one of Rosenior’s first six matches as Chelsea head coach across all competitions, starting four times (including against Arsenal and Napoli). For context, he started just eight of the first 29 matches of this season under Enzo Maresca, and was rarely trusted with significant minutes in big games.

Cole Palmer’s fitness issues have factored into that shift, with Enzo Fernandez more regularly selected in an advanced midfield role. But it is already clear that Rosenior favours a true double pivot at the base of his midfield rather than inverting a full-back next to Moises Caicedo in possession, and Santos appears to be his preferred partner for the Ecuadorian.

Maresca at times gave the impression of not quite knowing what to make of Santos. Last summer, he said he saw the Brazilian as more of an attacking than a defensive midfielder, “more like Enzo than Moi or (Romeo) Lavia”, before claiming in December that Chelsea’s squad lacked a natural replacement for Fernandez and that Santos is “more of a No 6”.

Rosenior has no such doubts, and Santos’ position in his team is clearly defined.

He is invariably Chelsea’s deepest midfielder, making himself available to receive the ball from his defenders and goalkeepers and trusted to direct passages of possession largely with short, sensible passes. His consistently deep presence allows Caicedo to operate slightly in advance of the ball, as illustrated below against Crystal Palace…

… and against Napoli…

Without the ball at Selhurst Park, Santos also took on the responsibility of man-marking Brennan Johnson, tracking the Wales international back into his own penalty area to neutralise danger when circumstances required him to do so…

“It’s like a semi-four or semi-five at the back with Andrey in between,” Rosenior said of Chelsea’s tactical structure after the Palace win. “I’m lucky with Andrey because he’s done it for me before (at Strasbourg last season). The beauty of having Andrey there allows Moi to stay in the middle of the pitch where I love him to be and have him and Enzo at the top.”

Freed from the responsibility of anchoring the entire Chelsea midfield, Caicedo can become more of a roaming destroyer and even push more regularly towards the opposition box, where his exceptional ball striking makes him a genuine additional goal threat. It also gives Fernandez greater midfield cover as he seeks to impact the game in the final third.

This balance between Santos’ positional discipline and Caicedo’s broader range of influence can be seen in their respective touchmaps against Palace…

Santos is confident and generally comfortable receiving the ball under pressure in his own defensive third. When he first broke through at Vasco da Gama, it was not uncommon to see him dribble the ball out of his own penalty area from short goal kicks.

Chelsea would be brave to attempt something similar against a Premier League opposition press, but there is no reason to believe he will be a liability in this role, particularly when Caicedo is close enough to help him.

That was not the case in Chelsea’s Carabao Cup semi-final first-leg defeat against Arsenal at Stamford Bridge. Caicedo’s suspension left the more defensively limited Fernandez as Santos’ pivot partner, and the Brazilian endured some hairy moments playing out from the back when the Premier League leaders decided to hunt the ball with intent…

Santos and Caicedo were also pulled too far apart in the lead-up to Napoli’s first goal against Chelsea on Wednesday. The Brazilian’s attempted pass upfield fell short of finding any of his team-mates, and the result was Antonio Vergara running at an isolated Wesley Fofana with both of Rosenior’s midfield pivots caught badly out of position.

Occasional costly errors are an unavoidable consequence of trusting a 21-year-old to control such a key area of the pitch. Santos has also flashed plenty of promise operating in tandem with Caicedo, adding more physicality to Rosenior’s midfield out of possession as well as presenting a more technically capable option for progressing the ball than Marc Cucurella or Malo Gusto whenever they are shunted infield.

One aspect of Santos’ game which may recede in his current Chelsea role is his goalscoring. Last season, he found the net on 10 occasions in Ligue 1, at times displaying outstanding instincts for when to arrive in the opposition penalty area. But a sizeable chunk of his goal threat also derives from his ability to convert in the box from set-piece deliveries, and there is no reason why set-piece coach Bernardo Cueva should not be able to harness this particular talent.

Santos will face greater competition for regular midfield minutes at Chelsea when Palmer’s health improves, and if Lavia can ever find a way to conquer his own injury demons. But all the signs are that he will be given his most substantial opportunity yet to establish himself as a key figure at Stamford Bridge.

Brazil legend Dunga was 30 when he anchored a team of world champions at the 1994 World Cup in the United States. Thanks to Rosenior, Santos is already beginning to do the same.

By Liam Twomey and Anantaajith Raghuraman