Graham Potter has suggested that Chelsea’s Marc Cucurella has struggled in recent performances, and the player himself is well aware he’s been off the pace.
Cucurella, who joined Chelsea from Brighton last summer for £60million, immediately had a lot of pressure on his shoulders this season because of the bulky price tag. Frank Lebouef recently described it as a “crazy” amount of money to spend on him.
Unfortunately, the £110,000-a-week left-back has had a difficult start to his Blues career at Stamford Bridge
The 24-year-old defender has had plenty of opportunities to impress so far this season, especially due to Ben Chilwell’s injury problems.
However, the Spaniard has been unable to recreate the same kind of form he showed at Brighton last year.
Potter has been fairly transparent in his press conference this week about Cucurella’s individual levels.
He admits the full-back is going through a difficult patch of form:
“Marc is fine, he’s going about his work. He knows he is probably not in the best moment of form but he isn’t the only player who has to come through a moment,” Potter said, as quoted by Football London.
“He is a player the club invested money in during the summer and it is our job to help him, support him, and bring him to the place where he is showing everyone his qualities.”
Potter has seen first-hand how good Cucurella can be after coaching him at Brighton, so it feels like he’s the best man to try get him out of this slump at Chelsea.
The left-back certainly isn’t a lost hope and helped keep back-to-back clean sheets in the last two Premier League games.
It does feel like he’s missing any real spark as an attacking outlet on the wing, though. Also, some fans have flagged concerns over his 1v1 defending.
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