25. Moisés Caicedo

[MoroccanBlue 5,320]

He's winning 5.1 tackles per 90 this season. Last time a player did that well for us was Kante with 5.8 in 20/21 season.  I'd go as far as saying in all of 2024 I don't think there's been a DM better than him in in the league not named Rodri. Not even close. 

 

Edited October 28, 2024 by MoroccanBlue

[Stats 7,060]

2 hours ago, Magic Lamps said:

Good question. He has definitely improved and we have to give him some credit that he basically was our sole holding mid for a season where we had poor overall defensive organisation. He has stopped most of these absolute brainfarts leading to goals by now which was why my assessment back then was so scathing. I still think we massively overpaid and he will never be a player worth 115m but he at least looks adequate now the team is finding its feet. So, I would not say he has proved me wrong yet but at least he is going int he right direction. There are still a few DMs I‘d have over him out there, but with the squad we have he clearly has his place in the starting lineup 

Honestly, I mean this when I say this, no biased aside. I wouldn't have another DM over him right now. He has everything you want as a CDM. He wins his tackles and also bosses the game and is a very good passer too. I remember someone on here before saying to me that Gallagher was a better passer and they simply used the stats as their evidence when Gallagher played further advanced than Caicedo. Caicedo's passing is underrated. He has twice this season now played superb through balls to Jackson. For his age and current ability combined with he is getting better, yes I would not take another DM over him right now.

5 minutes ago, MoroccanBlue said:

He's winning 5.1 tackles per 90 this season. Last time a player did that well for us was Kante with 5.8 in 20/21 season.  I'd go on in saying in all of 2024 I don't think there's been a DM better than him in in the league not named Rodri. Not even close. 

 

Exactly. Agreed.

Edited October 28, 2024 by Stats

[King Kante 1,527]

Still not my type of player in the possession side of the game. However, with his finish to last season and his start to this season I can admit I was wrong about my judgement of this guy. 

[Vesper 29,192]

Moises Caicedo’s Chelsea displays this year have cast aside questions over £115m fee

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5895017/2024/11/04/moises-caicedo-Chelsea-analysis/

No one should question the transfer fee Chelsea paid for Moises Caicedo anymore.

Caicedo’s importance to Chelsea was one of the main themes of Enzo Maresca’s press conference following their 1-1 draw at Manchester United on Sunday. When you score the kind of goal Caicedo did — a first-time volley with his right foot from the edge of the area into the bottom corner — you will always be the topic of conversation.

Chelsea did not buy the Ecuador midfielder from Brighton & Hove Albion for a Premier League record £115million ($148.8m at the current exchange rate) in August 2023 for his ability to find the net, although seeing this strike was worth the cost of a match ticket, just like his halfway line lob against Bournemouth was in May. No, Chelsea’s main motivation in luring Caicedo to Stamford Bridge is for him to be a stalwart in front of the defence for the next decade.

No one will deny the amount of money to acquire him was extraordinary. An unconvincing start to Caicedo’s Chelsea career, including giving the ball away during the build-up to Nottingham Forest’s winner at Stamford Bridge 14 months ago, made winning over the critics and the football fraternity even harder. The deteriorating form and fitness of midfield partner Enzo Fernandez, Chelsea’s previous record purchase (at £106m) signed seven months earlier, did not help his cause either.

Inevitably, Caicedo, 23, has been compared unfavourably to another midfielder who broke the £100million barrier in the same transfer window as his high-profile move. Declan Rice’s impact on Arsenal following his switch from West Ham (£100m plus £5million in add-ons) was more immediate. His performances helped Arsenal push Manchester City in the title race last season. He did not win a medal to show for his efforts but you did not hear many questioning whether he was a good acquisition after a few months in an Arsenal shirt.

 

Caicedo celebrating his goal at Old Trafford (Michael Regan/Getty Images)

But Chelsea’s failure to challenge for the Premier League (they finished sixth in May) does not mean Caicedo should not be getting the same respect Rice has earned.

Caicedo’s form in 2024 has been of a very high standard, growing in stature and confidence in a Chelsea shirt every week, first under Mauricio Pochettino and now under Maresca.

He has become the most trusted player in the squad. No Chelsea player has played more than his 3,760 Premier League minutes since the start of last season or made more appearances (43 starts and two as substitute). In terms of minutes, Nicolas Jackson (3,596) and Cole Palmer (3,485) are his closest challengers. Meanwhile, Fernandez, who was signed to become the key figure of Chelsea’s midfield, is losing ground at 2,804 minutes. The Argentina international will struggle to close the gap because he has been named on the bench for three consecutive league fixtures. Romeo Lavia has been favoured instead.

From a statistical point of view, Caicedo is beginning to outperform Rice in many metrics, as highlighted by Mozo Football (some data analysts have slightly different numbers, but the Chelsea midfielder’s superiority is consistent).

Caicedo’s three tackles at Old Trafford have taken his Premier League tally for 2024-25 to 35 (according to Opta). No one has more in the division. He ranks sixth for interceptions (17), but the combined total (for interceptions and tackles) puts him ahead of everybody else.

Perhaps even more significant in the minds of Chelsea’s fanbase is how he is averaging the most tackles and interceptions per 90 minutes in a Premier League season (5.2) for the club since N’Golo Kante (5.8) in the 2020-21 campaign.

 

Maresca speaking to Caicedo after the game (Carl Recine/Getty Images)

Maresca is cautious about getting too carried away. The Italian sidestepped a question in his press conference over whether he believes Caicedo should be regarded as one of the best midfielders in the Premier League, instead emphasising the quality of the whole squad while demanding more from Caicedo. He is an admirer but believes there is more to come.

He said: “Since we arrived, Moi (Caicedo) is doing fantastic. I said during the week, the problem with Moi and Enzo — these kinds of players — is probably the big money the club paid. Everyone expects them to be the best but they are human, it is normal. Moi is improving a lot. We are spending time with him and the rest to improve them.

“In football, one plus one is not always two. Because he was so good at Brighton, it does not mean he will be as good at Chelsea. He needs more time, he needs to adapt.

“Chelsea is a big club, one of the best clubs in the world, so the impact is not easy. When they join Chelsea for a lot of money, people think they will arrive here and be the best but that’s why I said one plus one is not two.”

The head coach may be reluctant to build up Caicedo too much because it is so early in his reign — but actions speak louder than words and Maresca is treating him as a player he cannot be without.

[Fulham Broadway 16,968]

Caicedo has opened up about the immense pressure he felt following his record-breaking £115million move to Chelsea.

Reflecting on his journey, Caicedo shared: "When you come to a big club, at the beginning the pressure is different here, first you have to adapt to all the team-mates and what the coach wants.

Being the most expensive player in the Premier League, a lot of things cost me because I had the pressure of being the new N’Golo Kante.

AP

[Vesper 29,192]

Moises Caicedo has become Chelsea’s least replaceable player

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6046790/2025/01/09/moises-caicedo-Chelsea-analysis-squad/

It has been a while since anyone has used Moises Caicedo as a £115million stick with which to beat Chelsea’s recruitment strategy.

You have to go back to December 2023, in fact, and then Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp’s quip that they had been “lucky” to miss out on the Ecuador international a few months earlier, finding themselves outbid after agreeing a £111million fee with Brighton.

There are still unlikely to be any regrets at Anfield about the way things have panned out, especially in light of Klopp’s successor Arne Slot transforming Ryan Gravenberch into an elite No 6 this season. But the mockery of the fee has aged very badly. Not because Caicedo has actually been able to live up to that ludicrous price tag — which was always an unreasonable expectation — but because an excellent 2024 has firmly established him as being every inch the world-class midfielder Chelsea believed him to be.

There were clear signs in the second half of last season, under Mauricio Pochettino, that Caicedo was overcoming the pressure that accompanied his record-breaking move, steadily eliminating the individual errors that marred a difficult start to life in west London. His spectacular goal from the halfway line against Bournemouth at Stamford Bridge in May was a fitting punctuation mark on months of positive progress.

That upward trajectory has continued this season with Pochettino being replaced by Enzo Maresca, who has tweaked Caicedo’s position to make him more of a specialised No 6 in his structured system.

The patrolling presence of Caicedo at the base of midfield, snapping into tackles, making smart interceptions and playing sharp passes that put Chelsea on the front foot has been a non-negotiable for Maresca. No player in the squad has played more Premier League minutes than the Ecuador international (1,777), and the only other player to start every one of the club’s 20 league games is their 13-goal top scorer Cole Palmer.

Palmer is Chelsea’s best player — and were it not for the blistering form of a certain Egyptian powering Liverpool’s march towards the title, he would probably be the consensus pick as the best in the division — but there is a strong case to argue that Caicedo is the one Maresca would find it hardest to do without.

That is not as incendiary a statement as it might initially appear.

Almost every Chelsea attack goes through Palmer, and with good reason: his ability to create high-quality shots for himself and his team-mates is unrivalled in the Stamford Bridge ranks. The 22-year-old England international is both the best finisher and the best passer at the club. Losing him for any extended period would force Maresca to significantly tweak the team’s approach in the final third.

But other players could temporarily fill part of that huge void — chief among them Christopher Nkunku, whose skill set is far more suited to playing Palmer’s role than that of Nicolas Jackson up front. Maresca also has another skilful, imaginative attacker in summer signing Joao Felix who, like Nkunku, is neither a true striker nor a winger.

Chelsea’s attack would suffer mightily if Palmer were sidelined for a significant chunk of a season, but there is enough alternative talent in this squad to replace him in the aggregate for a game or two.

The same cannot be said about Caicedo who, at times this season, has resembled the connective tissue holding the entire team together.

No player in the Premier League has made more combined tackles and interceptions than Caicedo (93) — an even more remarkable statistic when you consider that Chelsea, who are averaging 58.2 per cent possession in the top flight (second only to Manchester City’s 61.4 per cent), afford him fewer opportunities to rack up either than tough-tackling rivals in less dominant passing teams.

It is no surprise to learn that he grew up playing football with Chelsea predecessor N’Golo Kante’s name on the back of his shirt. “He is my idol, everyone knows this,” Caicedo told the club’s official website last month. “As I’ve said before, I just try to help the team and my team-mates. He (Kante) was a very big player for Chelsea. I always watched videos of him and now I try to give my best.”

Kante was a unique, generational midfield talent during his Chelsea career from 2016-23. Caicedo has a different style on the pitch but there are shades of the great Frenchman in the speed and frequency with which he reads the play and covers ground to disrupt opposition counter-attacks before they can even begin. And once he wins the ball back, he is an immediate threat to turn defence into attack with a brilliant through pass, as he has done to assist Jackson away against West Ham and Liverpool this season.

 

 

Maresca rarely takes Caicedo off (Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)

There is no other player in the squad even remotely capable of doing what Caicedo does as consistently well as he does it.

Romeo Lavia, though hugely talented in his own right, is more Mateo Kovacic than Kante: brilliant at receiving the ball under pressure and jinking away into space or playing a slick pass, but not yet defensively aware enough to be relied upon as the primary midfield destroyer. Enzo Fernandez is better utilised higher up the pitch, where his defensive flaws are less damaging.

Maresca has limited his trial of Cesare Casadei as a No 6 to games in the UEFA Conference League, and the young Italian could leave Chelsea permanently this month. Renato Veiga, despite flashing promise as an inverting left-back since joining in the summer, has not even been trusted to play alongside Caicedo in the Premier League since the 1-0 win against Bournemouth in September.

Andrey Santos is often cited as the best-equipped alternative on Chelsea’s books, but he is not expected to be recalled from loan at Strasbourg of France’s Ligue 1 this month and, in any case, has produced much of his best football as a box-to-box midfielder. The better course might be to bring Lesley Ugochukwu, regarded internally as having Aurelien Tchouameni-level long-term upside, back early from his miserable loan at hapless Southampton.

Caicedo’s importance is further underlined by the fact Maresca has only felt comfortable enough to bring him off twice in the Premier League this season: once in August, when Chelsea were 5-2 up after 76 minutes against Wolves, and in November when his side enjoyed a 2-0 lead away to Leicester. The latter game became unexpectedly nervy after Caicedo’s 81st-minute withdrawal, with Lavia conceding a penalty that was converted by Jordan Ayew.

 

Caicedo winning the ball back against Spurs (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

No team can avoid becoming reliant on their best players. Maresca last month insisted that Caicedo is good enough to “sit at that table” of elite holding midfielders with Rodri and Declan Rice. He, along with everyone else, cannot fail to have noticed the extent of Manchester City’s struggles to control games and defend transition attacks this season without their injured reigning Ballon d’Or winner.

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Caicedo has been impressively durable for Chelsea, too; he started their final 20 Premier League games of last season from Christmas on, and not even frequent gruelling long-haul international breaks spent in South America have affected his availability. But even the most physically resilient bodies have a breaking point, and clubs need to be more mindful of those limits than ever as they manage key players through an increasingly crowded schedule.

Maresca has wisely limited Caicedo’s involvement in the Conference League to featuring in both legs of the qualifying play-off against Servette of Switzerland in August, and an FA Cup third-round tie at home to fourth-division strugglers Morecambe on Saturday offers a well-timed breather after an intense festive run.

Chelsea’s head coach has seen enough in his first six months at Stamford Bridge to be mindful of the possibility that a Premier League top-four finish could well depend on keeping his least replaceable player on the pitch when it matters.