Jump to content

25. Moisés Caicedo


James
 Share

Recommended Posts

13 hours ago, Stats said:

Palmer will be a candidate but has dipped second half, however nevertheless he still has been good. Cucurella been good  too, however for me Caicedo is our POTS. He was brilliant again tonight. Absolutely phenomenal. What a performance. His tackling is so on point and the way he controls the game in possession also is really impressive. You know he has been very good when no one discusses the price tag anymore. @King Kantemay disagree though.

Tbh, my issues with him is that he isn't my type of player. He had a good game yesterday but my issues with him stem from his positional play - as he leaves his position too often to chase the ball, which is one of the reasons teams run through the midfield - his tackling style (although he admittedly does have a good success rate) as I am firmly of the Maldini belief that you only need to dive in if you've already done something wrong (this goes back to positional play/reading of the game) and his passing of the ball which doesn't ever really go above 6-7/10 with the odd exception. 

For me, when I want a defensively minded CM/DM I want a Lavia (forgetting about fitness and just focusing on play style), Camavinga or a Tchouaméni type player. Caicedo's style I find too chaotic and feel that people get a bit carried away with his engine and diving in. 

As I said, he isn't my style of player and his flaws I think cause issues that aren't always recognised. In a similar way, it is why I defend Jackson a lot. I do recognise his weakness which are widely meme'd but equally he doesn't get the credit anywhere near enough for how important his off the ball work and running is - although some people seemed to realise that a bit more with his injury recently and the lack of threat we had as a consequence. That said, I would rather Jackson be a rotational player long term - unless he sorts out his finishing, but currently he has to start as the No.9 as we function nowhere near as well without him. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, Fulham Broadway said:

All over the tabloids this morning -driving without a licence -cops nicked his £160 000 Audi

 

Oh dear. Probably he had a license from Ecuador but you can only use a foreign license for like a year in the UK I think and then you have to sit and do the test. He's probably been driving without a valid license for like 4 years... No idea how he was even getting insured (or if he was insured).

23 years old and can't get the basics of his life together... Not a good look tbh.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Mhsc said:

Oh dear. Probably he had a license from Ecuador but you can only use a foreign license for like a year in the UK I think and then you have to sit and do the test. He's probably been driving without a valid license for like 4 years... No idea how he was even getting insured (or if he was insured).

23 years old and can't get the basics of his life together... Not a good look tbh.

To be fair most PL players have an entourage of 'fixers'. Eg like if they want to move house, they dont have to do a thing -every detail is organised and done for them. Seems in this case one of Caecedos fixers has fucked up - or maybe he doesnt use them

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Mhsc said:

Oh dear. Probably he had a license from Ecuador but you can only use a foreign license for like a year in the UK I think and then you have to sit and do the test. He's probably been driving without a valid license for like 4 years... No idea how he was even getting insured (or if he was insured).

23 years old and can't get the basics of his life together... Not a good look tbh.

 

Probably he has the "I have money and am famous hence I can do this" attitude, and probably he is right about it. Darron Gibson, Marcos Alonso, Wes.. If you even get injured like that moron Antonio, you even gain the public's symphaty.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

Another top performance. Deservedly our POTY. Despite a shake start when he first joined which is understandable, has come on leaps and bounds and has been consistent in every game this season. I am not swapping another CM for him. Immense.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Stats said:

Another top performance. Deservedly our POTY. Despite a shake start when he first joined which is understandable, has come on leaps and bounds and has been consistent in every game this season. I am not swapping another CM for him. Immense.

Yes but with a fit Lavia he ain't a CM sadly. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Moises Caicedo: Chelsea’s player of the season who has thrived out of position

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6336960/2025/05/07/moises-caicedo-Chelsea-player-of-the-season-out-of-position/

caic-main.png?width=1000&quality=70&form

Cole Palmer looked more comfortable on the pitch than at any other time since January in Chelsea’s 3-1 victory over Liverpool. He also looked more at ease than at any other time in his post-match interview when he was invited to praise the team-mate standing next to him.

“When you’ve got (Moises) Caicedo next to you, it’s a dream, really,” he told Sky Sports. “From the start of the season until now, he’s been our best player. He’s a machine. He wins everything back (for the team), always gives 100 per cent every day, he’s humble, he’s nice to everyone and everyone loves him.”

The rest of the Chelsea dressing room and a majority of the voting supporters clearly agree, since Caicedo took home both of the men’s first-team player of the year gongs at the club’s awards night at Grosvenor House following the Liverpool win last Sunday.

Caicedo’s candidacy was strong even before Palmer entered his 18-game goal drought. He is the only Chelsea player to start all 35 Premier League matches this season and, for long stretches, has given the impression that his ferocious tackling, relentless intensity and smart distribution were the glue holding Enzo Maresca’s team together. The numbers, illustrated below, back that up (true tackles are tackles attempted plus fouls plus challenges lost, and true interceptions are interceptions plus blocked passes).

moises_caicedo_defending.png.png

But his case has arguably been further strengthened in the last week by the return from injury of Romeo Lavia. Maresca’s preferred method of integrating the Belgian into his team is to recast Caicedo as a right-back who moves into the base of midfield, and the Ecuador international has embraced this combination of novel and familiar responsibilities with trademark enthusiasm.

 

Lavia’s ability to identify and play passes that break the opposition’s midfield line dramatically expands Chelsea’s capabilities in possession, and he demonstrated as much by slipping Palmer in behind Curtis Jones to ignite the move that yielded the opening goal against Liverpool. But those gains can only be consolidated if Caicedo can bring his usual dominating presence to central midfield while not neglecting his right-back responsibilities.

The early indications suggest that he can; Liverpool’s visit was the fifth Premier League game this season that Caicedo has started at right-back with Lavia as the No 6, and Chelsea have won four of them (the other being a 2-2 draw with Bournemouth at Stamford Bridge in January).

Moises-Caicedo_positions_2024-25.png

Caicedo’s natural aggression translates readily to the right flank, where he is always looking to pick off passes hit towards the winger he is marking. Shortly before half-time against Liverpool, he pounced on a ball out of the visitors’ defence intended for Cody Gakpo.

Lavia then picked out Nicolas Jackson in the penalty area, but the striker was narrowly offside:

MC-GIF-2.gif

Despite this front-foot approach, Liverpool found it difficult to exploit the space behind Caicedo. He is agile and aware enough to pick off passes aimed over his head. He sprinted back with Gakpo to nod this floated pass from Jones on to goalkeeper Robert Sanchez:

MC-GIF-3.gif

Liverpool were only able to get behind Caicedo once, when Kostas Tsimikas pinned the Ecuador international to his back in the ninth minute before laying the ball off to Gakpo. Pedro Neto did not track the Dutchman’s run and Caicedo could not recover, but Sanchez saved the eventual shot comfortably:

MC-GIF-1.gif

Caicedo’s unique ability to do two jobs at once is best highlighted by the sequence below from Chelsea’s 1-0 win over Everton.

In the 11th minute, he made a trademark interception in the middle of the pitch, jumping in front of Iliman Ndiaye to poke the ball towards Palmer. He fell to the floor on landing but when possession was quickly lost, he got back to his feet and sprinted with Ndiaye back towards the left touchline, scrambling to his defensive position so quickly that the Everton winger ultimately decided to abort his forward run:

MC-GIF-8.gif

Caicedo, 23, may not be quite the progressive passer that Lavia is, but in this hybrid positional role, he is a meaningful passing upgrade on Malo Gusto or even club captain Reece James, the two other players Maresca has deployed as inverting right-backs in the Premier League this season.

Here he is against Tottenham Hotspur in December, bringing down a looping cross from Brennan Johnson under immediate pressure from Dejan Kulusevski in his own box and calmly curling a left-footed pass out to Neto:

MC-GIF-12.gif

Inverted’ into central midfield in the 36th minute against Aston Villa, he rattled a pass between two opponents and Lavia into the feet of Enzo Fernandez, initiating the slick move involving Palmer that ended with the Argentina international firing in Chelsea’s second goal of the game:

MC30.png

Antoine Semenyo is the one winger who has given Caicedo real trouble as a right-back, beating him one-vs-one to clip in a dangerous low cross in the first half. He then outsprinted Caicedo and lured him into a clumsy barge in the penalty area early in the second half, after Justin Kluivert had dispossessed Lavia:

MC-GIF-11.gif

Caicedo’s excessive eagerness to win the ball back is the only obvious weak spot in his game. He has garnered 10 or more yellow cards in each of his last three Premier League campaigns for Chelsea and Brighton & Hove Albion and is averaging 3.2 fouls per 1,000 opposition touches this season, second only to former team-mate Alexis Mac Allister in the competition.

But it is more a matter of minor adjustment than major adaptation. Chelsea want and need Caicedo to be aggressive in his pursuit of the ball and that, coupled with his indefatigable engine, enables him to be hugely influential in the closing stages of matches back in his natural midfield role when Lavia — who is still yet to complete 90 minutes for Maresca — leaves the field.

Caicedo helped Chelsea cement their territorial dominance once he was restored full-time to the middle of the pitch against Villa in December. In this pretty ridiculous sequence, he charged forward to make a successful tackle in the attacking third, then immediately pivoted and jumped to pluck the visitors’ attempted clearance out of the air and regain possession for his team:

MC-GIF-15.gif

Perhaps the most consequential example of Caicedo’s relentlessness came in the 95th minute against Liverpool. He had no right to beat Jarell Quansah to Dominik Szoboszlai’s sloppy infield pass in the visitors’ penalty area, but did so with sufficient poise to win the spot kick that sealed Chelsea’s biggest win of 2025 and enabled Palmer to end his scoring slump:

MC-GIF-5.gif

The ease with which Caicedo has adapted to his positional shift evokes memories of Chelsea legend Michael Essien, who continued to be one of Jose Mourinho’s best and most consistent performers when injuries elsewhere required him to move from midfield to right-back for much of the 2006-07 season — even surging upfield to score one of the greatest goals Stamford Bridge has ever seen to earn a 1-1 draw against rivals Arsenal.

Essien was rewarded for his positionless brilliance by being named the club’s player of the season in 2007. Caicedo may now be on a similar path, and his versatility is enabling Chelsea to build real momentum in this defining final stretch of the season.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
9 hours ago, Special Juan said:

Simply need to build around him with more quality and experience and not babies

    

CMFs/DMFs (obviously many are pipe dreams)

Federico Valverde  
Pedri  
Nicolò Barella  

Aurélien Tchouaméni
Gavi 
Joao Neves   
Warren Zaïre-Emery    
Vitinha  
Pablo Barrios 
Fermin Lopez  
Ederson  
Morten Hjulmand  
Sandro Tonali  
Frenkie de Jong  
Hugo Larsson 
Khephren Thuram  
Douglas Luiz  
Carlos Baleba   
Alan Varela  
Adam Wharton 
Jacob Ramsey 
Quinten Timber  
Ayyoub Bouaddi  
Marc Casadó  
Samuele Ricci 
Orkun Kökçu  
Felix Nmecha  
Ardon Jashari  
Gabriela Veiga  
Jobe Bellingham   
Javi Guerra    

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
12 hours ago, Fulham Broadway said:

Moises will be a big miss next game which will be a tough one. The ridiculous two-hour stoppage can't happen again - people just won't bother watching this tournament or the World Cup.

Its a shame that he misses the game but I'm also happy to see him get a breather as we'll need him fit for the long season ahead 😆

Time to see Maresca's management skills in action without Caicedo running around like a mad man.   Hopefully between Essugo/Santos/Lavia, they can cover midfield for 1 game

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
1 hour ago, ahmedou said:

2003: Claude Makalele

2016: Ngolo Kante

2023: Moises Caicedo

On 18 July 2008, it was reported that Makélélé was about to take a medical the following day in Paris ahead of a proposed move back to French football. On 21 July, Chelsea announced they had released Makélélé on a free transfer, while Paris Saint-Germain confirmed that the player would join them and would be unveiled at a press conference that afternoon.

On 25 February 2010, he announced that he would retire at the end of the season, but in June, he retracted his statement and re-signed with PSG for an additional season. He won the Coupe de France with PSG at the end of the 2009–10 season. He later retired at the end of the campaign. The next season, he was appointed the assistant manager to Carlo Ancelotti, who had just joined PSG from Makélélé's previous club, Chelsea.

ea55fa0f33828214e0229bd71b81b87b.png

qvw4yklh9llb1.jpg

makelele_2464586.jpg?20100612152642

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • 0 members are here!

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

talk chelse forums

We get it, advertisements are annoying!
Talk Chelsea relies on revenue to pay for hosting and upgrades. While we try to keep adverts as unobtrusive as possible, we need to run ad's to make sure we can stay online because over the years costs have become very high.

Could you please allow adverts on this website and help us by switching your ad blocker off.

KTBFFH
Thank You