Why Rayan Cherki Will Fit Pochettino’s Chelsea Even After Joao Felix Was Deemed Unfit

Reports from Frazer Fletcher, a BBC journalist yesterday claimed that Rayan Cherki has landed on the radar of Chelsea football club, as they search for an attacking midfielder with world class creativity.

It is no longer news that Chelsea have parted ways with Joao Felix who was signed on loan in January after new manager, Mauricio Pochettino deemed the Portuguese unfit for his style of football.

Some have claimed that one of the reasons why Pochettino didn’t fancy Joao Felix was because of the Portuguese forward’s lack of workrate in helping out defensively.

But if that’s the case, why then are Chelsea looking at Rayan Cherki? If anything, the Lyon youngster is worse than Felix in terms of workrate and defensive contributions.

The simple answer to that is that, Cherki can offer more creativity with his insane dribbling skills and incisive killer passes than Felix can. The statistics are pretty clear on that front.

Joao Felix VS Rayan Cherki statistical comparisons

Cherki will be sort of like Juan Mata or Eden Hazard who didn’t also have that attribute but they compensated immensely with their creativity and other players had no issues running for them.

Besides, the Lyon man who is only just 19 will be much cheaper than Felix and his work rate will definitely improve under the right manager.

I would support Chelsea signing him based on what he has to offer over Felix who is not very impressive with his creativity despite his superior qualities like goalscoring and experience. But what Chelsea really needs in that number 10 role is someone to create for the number 9 and the other forwards.

WoleOscar (
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