Andrey Santos has not had an easy start to life at Chelsea, but last night he had his best game yet, scoring a goal but also generally looking solid in a more defensive role covering for the absence of the legs of Moises Caicedo from the starting team.
So far we’ve often seen him playing off a striker or coming on as a late sub, but yesterday we got to see him conduct the orchestra from deeper with some success.
Santos impresses as Moises Caicedo cover
Of course he scored the Blues’ first goal (and his first goal for the club) with a lovely strike from the edge of the box, and that’s important – he’s known as a goalscorer.
But there was much more to his game that we liked to see. His duel numbers are superb – he won 7 of his 8 on the ground, and 3 of his 6 in the air. Nobody on the pitch won more than him, and nobody who attempted more than 5 duels had a better winning percentage.
He had 83 touches, more than anyone on the pitch barring Tosin, and he made 7 passes into the final third, more than any other outfielder.
On top of that he also made 2 tackles and an impressive 10 recoveries as he played in a Caicedo-like sweeping role. It’s really promising progress from Andrey, who surely has to get a Premier League start soon.
In other news…
Another player who impressed was Jamie Gittens, who finally put in a consistent showing for a full game and really caused havoc down the left and was universally called the man of the match.
Meanwhile Strasbourg got another big win against Auxerre to move them joint third in the Ligue 1 table. A journalist has noted Chelsea now have 2 players listed among Ligue 1’s top 4.
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