Estevao is having to be patient waiting for his chances with Chelsea at the moment, but he rarely lets his team down when given a start.
Last night was the perfect opportunity – at home, against a relatively weak opposition. The situation got even better when Ajax were reduced to ten men after just 17 minutes.
Estevao feasts on damaged Dutch defence
After that it was just damage control for the Dutch side, and time to shine for Estevao. After starting the game wide, he spent a lot of time playing inside later on. Wherever he was, he was causing damage. Stats site WhoScored noted that he had an incredible 63 touches in the final third. That’s the record in the Champions League this season.
FotMob had him rated as an 8.6, the highest in the match. His xG was an amazing 1.66, and he had 0.17 xA on top of that. He attempted 6 dribbles, and had an incredible 8 shots.
To put that in perspective, the next highest for Chelsea was 2 shots. Ajax had 2 shots in total, and one of them was a penalty.
Winger waits for next chance
We really like how Enzo Maresca is treating Estevao right now – using him sparingly, but always willing to throw him on when we need a spark.
The question is when his next start comes around. He will be back on the bench for this weekend’s start against Sunderland, but next week’s EFL Cup game against Wolves looks like another juicy opportunity for the Brazilian to show what he can do again.
Surely he can’t beat 63 final third touches and 8 shots? We’d love to see him try, however…
It’s not normal to be this excited about a game in the early rounds of the league cup, but that’s just what Estevao does to you.
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