Garnacho poor form due to Rosenior and Maresca’s “tactical approach” claims journalist

Jamie Gittens’ injury has reduced Chelsea’s options on the left, and the out of form Alejandro Garnacho is now set for more minutes.

Daniel Taylor’s piece for the Athletic looks at the winger’s career as a whole, and wonders if he will ever achieve his potential.  It’s a really interesting piece, and it’s worth considering the excuses it makes for Garnacho.

Garnacho held back by slow possession systems

Alejandro Garnacho applauds the away fans. (Photo by Alessandro Sabattini/Getty Images)

“In mitigation [for his poor form], perhaps it doesn’t help Garnacho that Chelsea’s tactical approach under new coach Liam Rosenior and previously Enzo Maresca is not always ideal for wide players who want space to attack,” Taylor writes.

“There is a lot of slow possession against teams that tend to sit back. Chelsea’s full-backs don’t often overlap, and that means Garnacho frequently has two opposition defenders in front of him when he gets the ball.”

That’s true, and we’ve said the same of our strikers, who only ever get the ball when jammed up with a couple of defenders. Of course the counter argument is that teenager Estevao Willian has had little trouble making danger on the right when given a chance in the team.

Rosenior has barely had a day of actual training with the group – hopefully we will see some new ideas from him in terms of getting the best out of the likes of Garnacho.

In other news…

Enzo Fernandez is a consistent goal threat for Chelsea, and he’s incredibly managed to match a Frank Lampard goalscoring stat – not something it’s very easy to do.

Chelsea’s lack of creativity at the moment is a problem. They can often score a goal when they need to, but it doesn’t usually come from dangerous, consistent attacking moves. Their lack of consistency in that department was criticised by podcasters.