Mauricio Pochettino convinced £39m Chelsea player has the potential to get better

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Mauricio Pochettino has responded with an interesting breakdown of Chelsea’s Axel Disasi when asked about his first season in the Premier League so far.

Chelsea coughed up £39m (Sky Sports) back in the summer window to sign Axel Disasi from Monaco.

Remarkably, the French defender has played in 22 of the club’s opening 24 games across all competitions this season. In fact, Conor Gallagher, Nicolas Jackson and Levi Colwill are the only teammates in the Blues squad to make more appearances.

The centre-back’s played most of his games in the heart of defence, often alongside Thiago Silva. He’s shown versatility to drop in as cover at right-back sometimes, too.

Chelsea boss head coach Mauricio Pochettino is fairly positive about Disasi’s first six months at Stamford Bridge.

Interestingly, he sounds pretty confident that there’s still a lot of room for him to improve and reach his potential.

When asked how impressed he’s been by Disasi this season, Pochettino responded via Football.London: “I think still, his potential, we are waiting for more. He has the potential to improve. He is doing well, it is not easy to arrive to the Premier League and to perform and then, in a team, a process to build a team, defensive always struggle a little bit more than the offensive. We are happy with him because he can play centre back but can help the team, with injuries to Reece James and Malo Gusto, to play right back.

“He is a player we knew, and maybe it was a little but lucky because if it was a different coaching staff, maybe we didn’t know he could play right back. One day when we were with Paris Saint German, he played with Monaco, he was in the side playing against Mbappe and we saw he can perform like right back. Unlucky because you can play centre back yes but you can play there also. He is a centre back and he can play both sides and we are so happy. Suffered a little bit in the beginning but it is normal and he is a player that can improve.”

Axel Disasi can get better

We think Disasi’s been a pretty solid performer so far in Chelsea colours, albeit he’s not really blown us away.

There’s been a couple of shaky performances where people have questioned him on the ball, but his overall defending looks pretty solid as package. Let’s highlight that he’s earned five senior caps for a very competitive French national team, too.

Speaking via TNT Sports a couple of months ago, Joe Cole said Disasi really doesn’t suit the right-back position and he’s much better as a central defender. We completely agree that he should stick centrally, with Malo Gusto on the right.