Is Cole Palmer out wide the solution to Chelsea's midfield dilemma?

Times

21-06-2025

Fifa wants clubs to play their strongest sides at the Club World Cup and detailed that demand in their participation agreements for the tournament. But, at least in the case of Enzo Maresca, the Chelsea head coach, this is no impediment to rotation. For the defeat by Flamengo on Friday he made four changes, having promised to shuffle the pack regardless of any penalty.
The reality of participation in the United States for Chelsea is that, should they go deep in the competition, they will have almost no time for a pre-season. That means they need to rest players, particularly in the piercing heat, which is forecast to hit 39C on Tuesday, just hours before a 9pm kick-off in Philadelphia.
But no pre-season means a loss of time for tactical experimentation in a non-competitive setting too. That perhaps explains why Maresca attempted something new against Flamengo, even if it could prove costly in the short term.
'In the last two days, we tried something completely different,' Maresca said after the match. 'For the first time, we played in a different structure. We played to prepare for next season, to have more options. [Against Flamengo], the plan was different.'
Maresca introduced a 4-2-2-2 set-up on Friday, with Liam Delap and Pedro Neto highest up the field almost as split strikers, supported by Enzo Fernández and Cole Palmer behind them. In defence, Chelsea used conventional full backs, jettisoning the requirement for either Marc Cucurella, at left back, or Malo Gusto, at right back, to invert into midfield.
On the day this plan did not work effectively against Flamengo, but this set-up contained some eye-catching changes with big ramifications for different personnel heading into next season.
The first was for Palmer, who was moved back to the right flank, where he played more regularly under Mauricio Pochettino and only once, on the opening day of last season, under Maresca. It was not the same as playing him as a right winger, because he had to cover more horizontal space, moving into central areas. But it was a shift, and seemed to allow him to link more with Delap, his former team-mate at Manchester City.
At Ipswich Town, Delap took a greater number of his touches off the left flank but at Chelsea, in his two Club World Cup appearances, he has been more of a feature on the right. Against Flamengo, his first-half shooting chance was created by a run between the left-sided centre back and the Flamengo left back, while against Los Angeles FC his two chances created for Fernández both came from running in behind on the right flank and delivering into the box.
The other tweak brought the return of 'normal' overlapping full backs. For Gusto the absence of such a role has limited his appearances, but the big impact could be for Reece James. Against Flamengo he started in midfield and it is a role he has assumed often under the Italian coach, but it presents a dilemma, owing to the fact that James's best displays were always as an effective wingback, a role Thomas Tuchel sees him in for England. At Chelsea last season that role did not exist in Maresca's system, but it does in this new set-up.
The big impact, though, is that by moving Palmer wide, and no longer requiring a full back to invert, it also allows all of Roméo Lavia, Moisés Caicedo and Fernández to start in the same midfield.
Those three played together only six times last season, and Maresca engineered that by playing Caicedo as a right back, relegating James to the bench. Now, with Palmer in a new role, Fernández can play higher in midfield while both Lavia and Caicedo can start together behind him. Only once did James join the trio on the field at the same time, away to Newcastle United, and that may change now with this tactical tweak.
Of course, this all sounds great in theory, but practice is what counts. The match against Flamengo was not a positive case study. Palmer was quiet while Flamengo frequently outnumbered Chelsea in wide areas thanks to their adventurous full backs creating two-v-one scenarios.
Trialling something new against the toughest group-stage opponent is far from ideal and potentially damaging, but if Chelsea are to change their tactical structure this summer, then the only time to do so is now.