According to The Athletic, Chelsea must weigh Enzo's off-pitch issues against his tactical suitability, and a sale could make the team more balanced.

On Monday, Fulham fans at Craven Cottage gave Enzo a taste of the reception he could face across Premier League stadiums this season, regardless of whether he leaves Chelsea or joins Manchester City next month.

When his name was read out as part of Chelsea's substitutes before kick-off, hostile boos erupted. As he walked across the pitch to the bench to prepare for the second half, the home fans sang abusive songs.

The pain from England's defeat to Argentina in a heated World Cup semi-final last summer has not healed. The presence of Enzo's compatriot Valentín Barco alongside him further provoked English fans. Jude Bellingham had previously confronted Barco in Atlanta after Enzo celebrated a goal in front of English players.

Chelsea fans at Craven Cottage, however, responded with applause for Enzo and sang his name. Football cannot escape its tribal nature, and jeers from opposing fans often energize a team's own supporters. By the final whistle, most of the away fans expressed their support for Enzo, who gave his shirt to a fan as he left the pitch.

If Enzo moves to Manchester City under Maresca, few expect this goodwill to continue. Maresca was already unpopular at Stamford Bridge and is now widely despised.

Transfer saga fatigue is setting in. After Chelsea defeated Fulham 3-2 on Monday, manager Enzo Maresca expressed his frustration in an interview about the lack of progress. When asked about Enzo's future on BBC's Match of the Day, he said: "In football, nothing surprises me. We will wait. I hope we will know what happens in the future, but we must see how this week unfolds."

From an off-pitch perspective, Chelsea's reasons for selling Enzo this summer are easy to understand. For much of the past period, he has caused problems for the club through public actions and the machinations of his agent, Javier Pastore. He publicly criticized the club's decision-makers last season, was then linked with Real Madrid, and has shown interest in both Maresca and Manchester City this summer.

Even if his goal is simply to stay at Stamford Bridge and secure a significantly improved new contract, the tactics he employs are provocative and confrontational. If he stays and receives a pay raise, who can guarantee that something similar won't happen in a year or two? If the two sides cannot agree on a new contract, how confident can Chelsea be that he will be a reliable player for Alonso this season?

In contrast, the footballing reasons for letting Enzo go receive less discussion. Manchester City may indeed improve considerably if Enzo joins Maresca, but Chelsea keeping him also carries the real risk of making the team Alonso is building demonstrably worse.

Chelsea fans who support Enzo may find this puzzling. Undoubtedly, he was one of the club's best players last season, scoring 10 goals and 15 in all competitions as a midfielder—a first for him in a single season. He has successfully developed into Stamford Bridge's most prolific eight since Frank Lampard and is also an exceptionally talented passer, which must be fully acknowledged.

However, this transformation also reveals that Enzo's Chelsea career has taken a strange path. In January 2023, Chelsea signed him for €120 million, approximately £106 million, from Benfica, initially hoping he would replace Jorginho and become the deep-lying playmaker for a new generation of world-class midfielders. He played this position for most of the difficult second half of 2022/23 and during Pochettino's tenure in 2023/24.

The problem is that when Enzo operated deep in midfield, Chelsea's defense was never strong enough. Despite his efforts to improve his physicality in recent years, his athleticism can still be insufficient when covering large areas of the pitch, and his defensive awareness is not sharp enough to effectively stop opposing attacks.

Pochettino seriously questioned the viability of a double pivot with Enzo and Caicedo. Even with Conor Gallagher pressing high in front of them, Chelsea was often torn apart during defensive transitions and conceded 63 goals in the Premier League in 2023/24.

Maresca's solution was to push Enzo further forward into the left halfspace while an inverted fullback supported Caicedo deep in midfield, and to slow Chelsea's possession tempo to keep the team more compact and better able to handle opposing counters. These adjustments helped stabilize the team's overall structure and allowed the Argentine to play his best football since joining Stamford Bridge, but at the cost of other areas—notably Palmer's significant drop in form.

Based on initial signs, Alonso will not adopt the same arrangement in his 3-4-2-1 system. Enzo would fit well as a left ten behind João Félix, but the approximately £117 million spent on Morgan Rogers this summer suggests he will fill these two positions with Palmer. Estêvão is fully capable of stepping in should either be unavailable.

Enzo plays a deeper role for Argentina with great success. However, beyond recognizing the fundamental differences between international and club football, it should also be considered that Argentina showed defensive weaknesses in nearly every match in the last two World Cups, and conceded four goals in two qualifiers against Cape Verde and Egypt on the road to the 2026 World Cup.

It is obviously unfair to pin these issues on a single player, especially a midfielder, but these performances help us see the bigger picture. In the past three and a half years, none of the managers appointed by BlueCo have managed to make the Enzo-Caicedo double pivot work consistently off the ball. Alonso is very clever and may have tactical solutions in mind, but wouldn't it be simpler if Chelsea received an ideal offer from Manchester City to simply let him go and reinvest?

However, this path is not without risks as the transfer window approaches its end. The domino effect of central midfield transfers this summer has largely played out, and many players still on the market play for clubs that don't want to sell and have no urgent financial incentive to risk their season objectives by letting key players go. Alex Scott and Adam Wharton are examples.

It is entirely conceivable that Chelsea could sell Enzo to Manchester City for a higher price than their January 2023 purchase fee, but simultaneously, the club might have to pay well above his true value for a replacement. This is the nature of today's overheated transfer market, but it could still be preferable to keeping Enzo and presenting Alonso with an unsolvable problem in balancing the squad.

Even in defeat, Fulham successfully exposed weaknesses in Chelsea's defensive structure at Craven Cottage. Caicedo's return from injury will help, but Lavia also has his defensive limitations. Signing a suitable number six could create an effective balance for a team that already appears to have one of the Premier League's most dangerous attacks.

The identity of this player will be decided by Chelsea's sporting department, which always maintains a list of potential targets. In the decision-making process during the final days of August, an abundance of evidence will undoubtedly lead them to conclude that Enzo is not the right choice.

Übersetzt von KI.

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