'Very good': Danny Murphy raves about Chelsea player who looked 'nervous' when he first joined the club
Danny Murphy thinks one Chelsea first-team player has gone through a brilliant transformation during his time at the club so far.
In recent years, there has been a mixed bag of success with signings at Chelsea. It’s certainly not been an easy task for individuals to settle under the current Blues owners.
Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca is beginning to find a consistency with the Blues squad, but there’s still transfer speculation regarding ins and outs at Stamford Bridge in the January transfer window.
Trevoh Chalobah has returned to Chelsea after being recalled from a loan spell at Crystal Palace. Incidentally, he’s available for selection in Monday night’s league clash at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Danny Murphy thought Marc Cucurella was ‘nervous’ at the start of Chelsea career
TalkSPORT pundit Danny Murphy has paid huge credit to Chelsea’s Marc Cucurella, 26, for his turnaround in West London.
It’s fair to say that the Spanish left-back endured a some tough times for the Blues after joining from Brighton in a £60m deal back in 2022. However, Murphy now looks at the Chelsea defender as the complete package despite being “nervous” in his early days with the club.
When discussing Cucurella, Murphy told talkSPORT: “He’s really good. He’s super fit, so he gets up and down all day. Technically very good. He likes defending; not all full-backs do. His end product is good. He’s got a nice all-round game.
“I think the initial negativity around him was because he’d walked into an environment that wasn’t particularly settled; he was looking a bit nervous and apprehensive, which lots of Chelsea players did when they got there. What we all like to do is judge too quickly.”
Cucurella is certainly one of Chelsea’s top performers this season. Even with the team’s recent poor form, the all-action full-back is still delivering consistently high quality performances.
Troy Deeney says Chelsea left-back Cucurella is performing above expectation, but we think he’s set these new standards for himself after developing and improving in the environment of a big club.
Finding cover for Marc Cucurella
In the Chelsea squad, there’s not really out-and-out cover for Cucurella at left-back. Renato Veiga steps in at times in defence, but he’s very much a different kind of profile.
Recent transfer rumours claim that Chelsea are looking at a five-man shortlist of left-backs.
- Milos Kerkez [Bournemouth]
- Nuno Mendes [PSG]
- Bradley Locko [Brest]
- Antonee Robinson [Fulham]
- Patrick Dorgu [Lecce]
Like Malo Gusto and Reece James at right-back, it would be great for the Blues to find another quality left-back to compete with Cucurella in 2025. It’s obvious that any full-back needs to be extremely flexible to be a success under Maresca.
from Latest Chelsea News and Updates - The Chelsea Chronicle https://ift.tt/HuqigPl
Post a Comment