Thread by @smarterscout

THREAD: Where does Enzo Fernández fit in at Chelsea?

We flagged him as a smarterscout young prospect in 2021 with Defensa y Justicia, and just two years later he's a World Cup winner heading for the Premier League. His overall stats at a PL standard are amazing:

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The main caution with Enzo Fernández is that his skill ratings are pretty average for the Premier League so far. But he's an aggressive player on both sides of the ball. He's a very attacking DM, involved in the majority of Benfica's goals when on the pitch:

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But the majority of Enzo Fernández's attacking comes from incisive passing – he hardly gets into the box at all, as our smartermap shows:

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That said, Enzo Fernández does like a shot from outside the box – something he'd probably be cured of in the xG-conscious Premier League. Those potshots from dead balls... they need to stop:

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If we look for players in Europe's top five leagues with similar styles, we get a pretty, pretty good list of DMs with passing and attacking talent. Marcelo Brozović, Fabián Ruiz, Luiz Gustavo, Bruno Guimarães...

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Here's a comparison of Enzo Fernández with Brozović and Ruiz, with performance metrics adjusted by smarterscout to a Premier League standard. You can see that the frequencies of different actions are very similar. Fernández is the most attacking, though a weaker dribbler:

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So, how would Enzo Fernández stack up versus Chelsea's incumbent midfielders? He's closer to Kovačić in style, though he doesn't dribble anywhere near as much. And his inclusion would still leave Jorginho as the only "enforcer" in midfield. Does he solve the biggest issues?

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P.S. This is Jorginho's positioning at DM so far this season. He has a slight preference for the left side, which is much more present for Enzo Fernández. Could they play in a double pivot, or would Fernández play further up? He's not as effective as a CM (yet).