“He’s deceived us”, former Chelsea-player John Obi Mikel stated in his own podcast, but Shaun Wright-Phillips doesn’t entirely agree.
“Confidence is a massive thing. You can see in elements of his game that he tries to make things happen. If you look at his past, before he joined Man United, whatever he did also worked. That builds confidence to make him do it again and again until he creates a chance or gets a shot or even scores a goal. It will come in time. I was a winger myself, and there are elements in his game I recognize from going through periods of things just not happening. He just has to put his head down and keep going because we know he's got the ability. You can lose your pace, you lose confidence, but your ability to do things is always there, it's just a matter of getting it out.”
How about wingers like Neto and Madueke, are they players capable of making Chelsea a top-four team and a Champions League side again?
“I think so. They're still young players. I was a big fan of Neto when he was at Wolves but they played more gung-ho, more on the counter-attack. He's kind of learning on the fly now and I think the Chelsea fans have to give him a bit of time because he has to learn to play this way and learn to pick his right moments to go and when not to go and when to do his maize runs.
“Madueke's improved since last year and you can see he's very aggressive in his approach. At times, he might be able to get that crossing in a little bit earlier or see a certain pass a little bit earlier. But that comes with experience and him learning what players he's playing with and how they want the ball. It will happen for him.
“If you look at Chelsea's front line-up, I’d say they need an out-and-out striker. I like watching Nicholas Jackson play because of the runs he makes in behind. But he doesn't come across to me as an out-and-out striker. The way I see him, he’s more like a winger that makes those runs in and gets involved with the striker. Every time Chelsea's played him on the left, he looks like a completely different player. Chelsea are just going through a blip. I think the mistakes they're getting punished for now also happened at the start of the season but then they didn't get punished and even when they did, they were scoring so many goals and Cole Palmer was on fire.”
Speaking of Palmer, will he stay at Chelsea, should they miss out on the Champions League? He looked to be having a good time talking to Guardiola when they were at the Etihad.
“Those two are always going to have that relationship. I remember when I was young and coming through, managers spoke to me as well. It's just a certain connection, a bond if you like. Pep helped nurture him, so there's that mutual respect. I don't think Cole Palmer will leave. As much as people are saying he's a bit quiet right now, he's still making things happen. He creates the chances but he's not judged on that. He's judged on assists and goals but it's not down to only him to score the goals. He might not be scoring goals but he's still doing what he's supposed to be doing in that team and that's creating chances.”
- Shaun Wright-Phillips played three years at Chelsea and was talking to Tribalfootball on behalf of BetVictor