Joao Pedro arrived in the summer and performed well in the Club World Cup and promised a lot, but has struggled since.
He doesn’t add the ruthless finishing that Nicholas Jackson lacks, but worse yet, he doesn’t offer the same off-ball movement or link-up play as the Senegalese star.
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Experts say Joao Pedro won’t be able to stay at Chelsea for three years
Joao Pedro protests against decision against Arsenal. (Photo by Ryan Pierce/Getty Images)
“I’d love to know if Joao Pedro will be at Chelsea in three years’ time,” one pundit told the London Blues podcast this week.
Running without the ball is garbage. I thought his defensive performance was terrible. During certain moves, my thought was “Either release it or position your body better to support it.”
“If you want to be a real penalty taker as a No. 9, you have to score a lot of goals and get a lot of assists. But for me, he’s never going to be that person.”
This is pretty harsh given the many promising signs we’ve seen, but we can see where he’s coming from. JP has played a lot of games now but doesn’t seem to be improving.
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“Nico is great at that. I think our biggest issue is consistency in finishing and the ability to take chances. But Nico does all the hard and dirty work consistently,” host Nick Villani agreed.
You can see their discussion in the clip embedded here:
https://x.com/LondonBluePod/status/2000955089184546955
In other news…
A lot of fans weren’t keen on signing Alejandro Garnacho in the summer, but now they’re starting to consider that he’s playing well and scoring goals.
Marc Cucurella has been brutally crushed by Chelsea and Italy’s grueling schedule and now the statistics show just how insane his performances have been.