Rosenior reviews his “amazing” midfield star with tactical insight on his role

We’ve been hoping to get some more feedback from Liam Rosenior on the tactical side of Chelsea’s development since he came into the club, and today we finally got a little taste in the press conference following the win against Crystal Palace.

Rosenior reviews Andrey Santos’ performance

Andrey Santos in action against Burnley. (Photo by Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA/Getty Images.)

We expected to see more of Andrey Santos in these early days because of the relationship between him and Rosenior from Strasbourg, but it’s been a slow start. He did get a game today in the double pivot, and the manager was asked how he thought the Brazilian had got on.

“Yeah, amazing. I’m lucky with Andrey because he’s done it for me before. He’s done that same position against Marseille and PSG last year but for the other players to take on board the information, that’s a different shape.

“They’ve never played that shape before. I thought the front three were magnificent in their understanding and their angles of press. I felt Enzo and Moi [Caicedo] in midfield. The beauty of having Andrey there allowed Moi to stay in the middle of the pitch where I love him to be and him and Enzo at the top. I’m very happy because they put into practise what we asked of them on the training pitch and that’s a really good sign.”

We expect to see more of this Caicedo – Santos setup in the weeks and months to come.

In other news…

Rosenior also praised Estevao Willian, who played a brilliant game down the wing and scored the opening goal for his team. But the coach also wanted to make sure everyone got their due.

Chelsea were busy getting a nice 3-1 win, but off the pitch, there was a major transfer update from Fabrizio Romano on the subject of Jeremy Jacquet.