Chelsea’s Denis Zakaria is blown away by the quality of teammate Hakim Ziyech, whose left foot he describes as “crazy”.
Zakaria, 25, is a Swiss midfielder that joined the Blues in the summer on loan from Juventus.
He’s still waiting to make his debut for the London club, but he’s at least been training for some time now with a talented squad of players.
Zakaria blown away by Ziyech
In particular, Zakaria has been left amazed by how good 29-year-old Ziyech actually is.
“Hakim [Ziyech] with a left foot – I never saw a left foot like it. Oof, it’s crazy,” Zakria said, as quoted by Football London.
Despite high praise from his new teammate, Ziyech is enduring a tough individual season.
The left-footed winger has played in just one of Graham Potter’s opening three games in charge, which was a late cameo from the bench.
It’s definitely concerning that he’s rarely played at the start of Potter’s reign. Also, he did fall out of favour with former boss Thomas Tuchel, so he’s not been in Chelsea’s best line-up for a while now.
There is no doubting the winger has a wand of a left foot, which is what helped put his name on the map from his successful spell with Ajax.
Unfortunately, the attacker has not consistently delivered in English football with the Blues since his arrival in 2020.
You would guess that there are enough fixtures in October that Potter will get a proper look at his entire squad. After all, he’s only had three games so far.
Ziyech has shown in his Chelsea career pieces of individual magic, but surely he would need to do a lot more to convince Potter he belongs in the starting XI.
Glenn Hoddle noticed last month the Blues crowd were voicing their frustration with Ziyech, so it feels like a long way back for him to convince fans. Let’s see if he changes Potter’s mind in the next few weeks, though.
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